


Prongsy

by the_never_was



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst and Humor, Developing Friendships, Developing Relationship, Drarry, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Eventual Romance, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Friendship, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Humor, Large sized One-shot, M/M, Romantic Ending, Romantic Fluff, Self-Growth, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-04-27
Packaged: 2020-02-07 04:09:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18612847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_never_was/pseuds/the_never_was
Summary: A story about taking chances, even when they come in the strangest of ways.





	Prongsy

**Author's Note:**

> A rather big gift for you all as I still work on the major sized writing I hope to upload in parts later this year. Originally planned as a brief, fun one-shot to rival the others I've written in terms of proportion, this grew a bit bigger into essentially its own short story. Ergo, it took a lot longer than planned to finish.
> 
> I hope you like it. I've beaten myself up over needing to post it for a while now, but it wasn't finished until recently because so much had to be moved and moved again and again within it until it lined up right. At least it's yet another checked off my original list of ideas to write since _Denouement_.
> 
> Sometimes things just have to bake a little longer. And that's okay.
> 
> Even so, thank you to any readers of mine for your patience. It's gotten me through more than you know. I appreciate all of you.
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> [the_never_was]
> 
>  
> 
> [PS to account subscribers:  
> I do write for other fandoms, one running series in particular, so keep it in mind with emails you might get soon.  
> Thank you.]
> 
>  
> 
> HP Characters/universe belong to JK Rowling.

 

 

 

**-Prongsy-**

 

 

 

It's quite warm in the dungeons with all the cauldron fires and their robes, but he manages to stay cool with a hidden charm as the rest sweat like idiots about him. Paired at tables two to a side, he is lucky enough to have Zabini with him in the advanced Potions class. Across from him, however, is another set of House matched individuals: Gryffindors lumped with them by Slughorn himself in the hopes of sparking atrocious friendship between the four of them with the War over and Voldemort dead.

Granger and Potter grumble at each other under their breath, Granger at Potter for almost crushing a delicate ingredient by accident for their potion mixture and Potter at Granger for still _reminding_ him of that fact. Granger counters that she _wouldn't_ have to keep reminding him if Harry would concentrate a little more on not repeating the mistake with the _next_ one he almost crushes.

Draco glances to Blaise, both of them smirking.

At the start of the special additional term for their year, a repeat of sorts for all the missed and unfocused education, the pair of Slytherins had silently decided to use their combined wits and ambition to beat out the Gryffindors each Potions class they had—to have the most accurately made potions prepared quickest, efficiently, and cleanly to impress Slughorn and show up that Know-It-All Granger. And right now their potion is bubbling nicely with _no_ crushed wings added. Zabini stirs it with the glass rod, pretending Granger's worried huff as she checks her cauldron isn't grating to his ears. She quickly has it bubbling properly like their own batch, far too soon to catch up for Draco's liking.

Draco tries to ignore the tickling sensation at the base of his neck, the feeling of being watched somehow. He assumes it's Potter looking at him, likely with some sort of routine suspicion founded on his own hot air that hasn't died down despite recent events. After a full minute, Draco dares to glance over, and his grey eyes clash with the green ones he expects to see.

“What?” he demands, wondering if he can bait Potter enough to distract _him_ and so distract Granger and thus beat them at their potion brewing for certain.

“Nothing,” Potter whispers at him, almost staring _harder_.  
  
Draco rolls his eyes. Potter exhales and pays attention to Granger again as she asks for his aid.

Blaise elbows him in the ribs. “Ignore _him_. Get me that last sprig of mint for taste.”

“Here, your _majesty_ ,” Draco mumbles and hands the bit of plant specimen over.

“About time you addressed me properly, Draco.”

Draco elbows Blaise this time, making the other Slytherin grunt as he laughs. “Prick.”

“Okay, Harry, now the mint,” Granger says, catching his attention. His alone, it seems. Draco's brows rise as he finds Potter staring at him again, zoned out, enough for Granger to tug at his arm until Potter snaps out of his thoughts.

Draco gives the Chosen One of fame and glory a look of scrutiny, but his cheeks warm all the same as Potter's do once his rival understands _where_ he'd been staring with his daydreaming. Not like Potter was daydreaming of _him_ , anyway. Probably lunch, given the amount of stomachs rumbling in the room.

He makes himself ignore the two students across the large table and focuses upon his cauldron, listening to Blaise between mild yawns with the rest of the room looking sleepy in the heated air, like blankets pressing over them. When they finish _just_ before Granger and Potter do, Slughorn leaves a table of mixed Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws and strides over, examines their bit of bottled potion, and praises them for their mild hiccuping cure as a welcome back “fun” exam of sorts.

Blaise tosses the small glass container at Draco, teasing as Draco catches it, “Never know when you might need it, choking on air the way you sometimes do.”

“Perhaps you should keep it, choking on your _words_ as you do,” Draco drawls in turn, smirks as Blaise bops him on the shoulder, and proceeds to clean up alongside his friend.

He ignores the commotion of others doing the same once they're finished, just pays attention to his bag sitting on the table top. Bored, he toys with the strap on it, barely listening to Granger and Potter chatting about Weasley's hopes on making Auror in a couple of years past graduating with the proper education and training.

Class ends, students rush for the door, and Draco squeezes through only to be smashed into a few witches further down the corridor by another eager Gryffindor and a Ravenclaw running out to catch lunch early. Several students cross to go to Potions, and the traffic backs up with students of all years working to get around each other quickly. His bag gets tossed out of his grip in the mixture of people, and one of the witches tries to pick up her books on the ground as her friend gathers things that fell out of a purse.

Draco curses under his breath at _all_ of them, rubbing his chest from where the one fourth year's head had hit him with force. Zabini's already gone halfway down the hall through the mess to the loo in their dorms, and Draco glares at the back of his friend's head, then turns to pick up his bag that had dropped from his shoulder in the chaos.

He stands, shocked, to find Potter caught up behind him holding the black leather bag awkwardly with Granger at Potter's side, both shifting around other students still trying to get through the junction. “Here,” Potter says. “I think this is yours. People are in a hurry, huh.”

“ _Obviously_ ,” Draco murmurs, grabs it quickly from Potter, and heads forward again with his back to them and his face on fire.

Potter grunts behind him. “Yeah, you're very welcome, _Malfoy_.”

“Harry,” Granger sighs. “Let's just go meet Ron.”

“Like I couldn't pick it up myself, you righteous idiot,” Draco hisses at them over his shoulder. He knows they won't hear him, not as he continues to the dorms and they turn for the path up and out to the Great Hall. Still it feels both good and bad to lash out at Potter for something almost kind, and like always, Draco is conflicted about Saint Potter's intentions and authenticity in such gestures. _Especially_ since the War.

As he passes the third year Slytherin and Hufflepuff students walking together, the Slytherin holding a nervous defensive expression as the Hufflepuff witch smiles away at their side, Draco wonders how if people _that_ different could be so friendly why it seems he never can with anyone outside his House. For one, not many else communicate the way he and his acquaintances do. Potter and his cohorts wouldn't get the banter to not take everything so damn personally. They don't understand the competition in upper society at all. And for two, prejudice, he assumes. Prejudice of his name, his family, his wealth...along with, he supposes, Potter's  _earned_ prejudice of the past years. And for that, uncomfortably enough, he can't blame his rival.

Draco grits his teeth, agitated with himself for _still_ thinking of Potter as he goes through the portrait, and upon arriving within his dorm finally, he tosses himself back upon his bed. He grabs a pillow, puts it over his face, and growls into it before pushing it off, punching it, and throwing it back at the headboard.

“Potter, huh,” Goyle calls from across the room with a laugh. “He's the only one who makes you scream like that.”

“Idiots fled the classroom too fast and ran into me. Made me drop my bag. Bastard doesn't even let me pick it up, just retrieves it for me, then gets huffy when I don't thank him for the stupid gesture. Goyle, I've kept my promise to Pansy to _try_ to avoid dealing with Potter this year since it's grated her bloody nerves in the past and thus _my fucking ears_ , but it's not easy to do when he must be the charming hero over even a dropped bag.”

“Stupid,” Greg agrees, pulling out a bag of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans and digging for the ones he _knows_ are apple in taste. Draco's certainly witnessed Crabbe and Goyle's great cataloguing of flavors over the years enough to know the taste on sight, too. “I'm hungry. You ready to go?”

Draco runs a hand through his hair, shaking Potter firmly from his head. “Yes.”

With Charms after lunch, Draco plans to carry his bag with him to the Great Hall in preparation. He pulls open the leather front and slips his hand inside for his Potions text, frowning when he feels something smaller that he doesn't recognize. Slowly he tugs until the thin book becomes visible, and Draco considers the black leather with serious confusion.

“The fuck,” he mumbles, flipping it over.

It bears no insignia. No words for any class, and it's certainly not something of _his_.

Curious, he opens it and flicks through pages, finding nothing but empty parchment. He closes it and reopens it right at the front, figuring in the tumble someone's diary fell from their hands near his bag. Someone in the crowd probably figured it was _his_ and put it there. But it likely belongs to the younger witch with her books all over the stone floor.

What was her House? Hufflepuff? He can't recall her tie.

Information should be _inside_ the diary, but strangely when he looks over the cover and first few pages, he finds nothing at all. No name, no scrawled notes, no designation of even a House insignia. Nothing that he assumes a fourth year witch might write to declare something so nice her own and private.

It's just a boring blank diary. A boring blank diary with _top_ notch craftsmanship.

Zabini enters briefly after using the loo and grunts at Goyle to sit on his _own_ bed.

“Blaise,” Draco calls softly. He shifts, holding the diary. “See anyone with this in Potions? Or in the hall after, holding it?”

Blaise comes closer and takes it from him a second, looking it over with a frown. “No. Where'd you get it?”

“Was in my bag. Figured someone dropped it in the rush when I got pushed.”

“Not anything I've seen on the tables around ours, at least,” Blaise admits, strokes the spine once, and hands it back to him. “Fuck them. Keep it. It's nice quality, worth galleons. Idiot shouldn't have lost it without _putting their bloody name_ in it.”

Draco nods and rests the empty diary on the desk next to his bed. He swaps out his Potions materials for that of Charms and goes to lunch, thoughts on the odd black diary in his dorm and not, for once, on the green eyes weighing him with curious anticipation across the Great Hall.

 

 

\----

 

 

Draco is torn for the next two days on whether he should ask students in the following class about the diary out of _some_ sense of discomfort about its bizarre and _suspicious_ appearance inside of _his bag_ , but when he brings the black book to Potions on the second day of thinking, the question stays caught in his throat. He's not sure whom it could belong to in the room outside of another Slytherin or maybe a Ravenclaw with the design of it. He doesn't remember the one witch enough to describe her to someone, either.

At the least it certainly couldn't belong to Granger; she has her signature on every text she carries, and Draco knows so because of the way she flips her books open over the shared space.

He considers Potter quietly, noticing the Gryffindor not looking at him so much for once.

Instead he finds the Chosen One chatting quietly with Granger until his rival sighs, digs through his own bag at his feet by the stool on the floor, and pulls out some parchment. Draco glances away, tuning out Granger dictating some sort of notes, not surprised that Potter doesn't even _have_ a diary for class and just carries about bits of parchment chaotically.

Draco stays quieter the entire class, mystified by the object he's received with its lack of identification, and he decides as he scribbles his own lecture notes with Slughorn droning on at the front boards that perhaps he'll follow Blaise's advice and just keep it. He's not heard anyone discussing it, and he rather likes the black book with its handsome leather and handmade parchment sewn inside.

Satisfied, he sits at his desk that evening after dinner. Crabbe and Goyle bicker over some cakes they'd sneaked out of the Great Hall, and Zabini snaps at them, reducing the noise halfway. Draco silently thanks Blaise in his head and forces himself through his Transfiguration reading.

His eyes stray from a page on a refresh course of complex material base shifting.

The thin black book rests scant space away from his fingers, almost as if it's waiting.

With a quick look about the dorm, Draco finds the rest preoccupied enough that he pulls the diary closer and flips through it _one_ last time in search. Alas, there is still nothing—no name, no class, no trace of ink at all.

He's never really kept a diary before. It's far too nice for school notes, and he wouldn't even know what to write in it of personal value that wouldn't simply be venting each day's annoyances—in other words, shit he wouldn't want to read again. His mental stacks of goals and methods have always been rather tidy, so he doesn't need it to arrange his thoughts, either. He barely sketches to fill it with anything outside of terrible random doodles.

Draco rolls his eyes at himself, aims to shut the front cover and stow the book away for probably weeks of debate on what to even do with the bloody thing, but sudden change catches his eye. It's not movement per se, and it's not that the book's magically come to life in any sense, yet _something_ changes. He feels it as he holds the cover—some sort of awareness, some sort of magic in the air—and his pulse jumps.

“Absurd,” he grunts, slamming the top down quickly.

“You say something?” Crabbe asks from his bed.

“No,” Draco replies, snuffs out his lamp, and slides into the bed with the curtains drawn.

 

\----

 

The next week passes with Draco's head barely conscious of the events around him.

Even Blaise mutters about it when they're in the library working on parchment lengths for Charms. Goyle moans over the work in the background while Zabini tells Greg and Draco both to contribute to their joint paper or fuck off for the dorms and write their own versions.

Draco joins back into the conversation, adding points he remembers from lectures, but his mind is on the black book he still puts in his bag each day. It rotates from his desk to his bag and back, and it remains empty of ink, void of even _his own_ claim despite the desire clearly forcing him to keep it.

The _aware_ sense had come back _five_ times over the week's passing; once during lunch when he'd glanced through it in the Great Hall, once in the library early on in the week, and _three_ times at night, each clocking between nine and ten in the evening by his watch.

He's fascinated, curious, and the slightest bit afraid.

The diary doesn't betray any other sense of magic than when that feeling is suddenly present. And Draco has tested it with preventative spells he's learned in classes, protection charms and such _just_ in case it's a horrible prank someone's planning to hurt him through using. There'd been no response to any test he'd tried.

After being absorbed in the few theories he'd had that now lie broken and useless, Draco begins to wonder if the odd sensation he's felt a few times is simply in his head.

He barely pays attention in Potions outside of when Slughorn is at the front talking or when Blaise has him lead on dissecting a new ingredient for study. He doesn't notice Granger whispering as she tries to get her partner to pay bloody attention to her speaking, and he _certainly_ doesn't catch Potter staring at him with inexplicable frustration.

 

\----

 

Almost two weeks to the day he found the diary in his bag, Draco lies awake on a Friday night in his bed. He's bored, and it's too early to sleep, but he doesn't want to do homework.

Crabbe and Goyle have snuck out of the dorms, no doubt to set up pranks in the common room, and Blaise has already fallen asleep in the bed next to Draco's with its tightly shut curtains against the hint of Draco's lamp nearby. The poor fellow is still recovering from a reaction to dinner, some sort of allergy, with a potion from the Hospital Wing, and Draco attempts to actually be as quiet as possible so as not to both anger the wrath of Zabini and torture the sod awake from a full evening of vomiting.

His eyes rest over the black diary sitting patiently in the middle of his desk.

It sits there without threat or danger. Just an empty diary making him lose his bloody mind.

Agitated, he shoves himself out of bed in his silky nightclothes and slides into his chair. Pale hands rest on either side of the book. He takes a breath. Looks it over.

And just as he debates throwing it in his bag to not look at for the rest of the night, the clock chimes ten and the _feeling_ comes. Hair rising along his arms and up his neck, Draco swallows and carefully reaches for the front cover. Slowly it opens up, the first cover page falling with it and resting beneath his thumb.

Draco bites his lip. His free fingers of his right hand stroke down the first page of parchment with no sensation—no tickling, no magic, nothing. But the awareness is still present somehow.

Fed up, Draco grabs for his raven quill. He dabs it into his black inkwell, and the feather stays in his hand above the page as he contemplates what the hell to write. He exhales as the ink almost drips haphazardly and quickly drops his hand down, his quill scribbling out his name in a signature at the top of the paper.

Draco lifts the feather, brows rising as he feels something shift. His name is bold against the blank page, a declaration of ownership he's long felt now yet never taken, and it's encouraging in the strangest of ways to finally claim it so.

He goes to dip his quill again when movement happens below on the page.

Draco's jaw opens, his hand poised over the inkwell with the raven feather. His wide grey eyes watch as more ink _appears_ farther down the top from his signature.

_Wondered when you'd use it. It's about time._

Draco's left hand instinctively flings the cover over the front, and he tosses the book away from him onto the floor in shock.

Blaise snorts in his sleep, disturbed by the rough bit of sound. Draco sits on his chair, one leg bent at the knee up to his chest with an arm about it, other hand holding his pointed quill's nib tip like a weapon. Draco observes the book the way a snake might a mouse in a field, with tight unblinking gaze and prepared energy to strike.

The damn thing remains perfectly still where it's been tossed away.

After three minutes of waiting, Draco's poised arm with his quill starts to lower.

He rubs his face, brushes fingers through his pale hair, and grumbles, tiredly, “Bollocks. It's just a fucking diary. I'm tired, I've _been_ exhausted, and I thought I saw something I didn't.”  
  
The book doesn't reply, of course, despite that awareness still being in the room somehow.

Draco sneers. “I should burn you for your trouble or rip out that page with my name and toss you into _someone else's_ bag.”

But even the satisfaction the thought gives wars with some sense of loss at the idea.

He pushes himself to unfold his leg and get up. Draco walks over, bends, and picks up the book with two fingers, pinching it along the spine and holding it away from him at first. Blaise rolls over with a moan of quiet discomfort, and Draco glances the bloke's way before moving back to his desk.

“Just a stupid fucking diary,” he mumbles and sets it down again. “There's nothing there but my own bloody signature. I'll prove it.”

His left hand flips the diary open, and his heart catches in his throat.

For there, on the paper, is his name, yes.

And under it is still the ink he didn't want to believe he saw.

And _under that_ is more ink, all in the same nondescript handwriting that could belong to anyone in the entire school.

_Tell me you aren't going to burn this. I paid good gold for someone to charm it, you know._

_Hello? Write something._

_Come on. Let me know you're still there, please._

Draco snaps, fuming with heavy breath. He dabs his quill in ink, and his wrist moves quickly under that line of writing, adding with flourish in his own distinctive lettering, _What the fuck is this, and who the fuck are YOU?_

His brows wing up as writing immediately starts to appear in turn, a quickly scrawled line thanking him for replying again and not throwing the diary away.

 _It's a gift_ , the response continues. _I'm not important yet._

“A gift,” he sneers. It takes him a second to recall that he must _write_ his response, so Draco scribbles out how he didn't ask for an enchanted diary gift, _no_ thank you, and now he's going to get rid of it posthaste.

_DON'T. Please, don't._

_Why the_ fuck _not?_ he demands, the words both verbally hissed and written.

_Because I want to get to know you. Through this. You know, writing each other._

Draco frowns, then glares down at the parchment, angry. _Hard to get to know someone who won't say their fucking name, isn't it._

_I know how this must look, but I swear it's meant genuinely._

_This is a fucking prank, and a pathetic one at that. I'm burning this. Cry over your gold._

_Please wait._

_Please fuck off._

_Draco,_

_DON'T use my name, you disturbed fuck._

Unnerved entirely, he puts his quill back on his desk and goes to shut the diary for no doubt the last time, a plan already formulating in his head to toss the stupid thing right into their common room's fireplace.

More writing starts to rapidly appear out the corner of his eye, and Draco forces himself not to look. Instead he stares at the clock, teeth grinding to the ticking of the second hand.

“I'm not doing this,” he states quietly to himself. “Someone's fucking _unhinged_ , and I'm not having any part of it. Can't even prank the arsehole back since I fucking _signed it_ , now can I?”

Black ink steadily fills the rest of the parchment page at the bottom in a stack of sentences.

Draco closes his eyes, takes a breath, and exhales it with a curse at himself, already turning to face front again and stare down at the open page. He reads quickly, eyes scanning as fast as the words appear until finally, at the end, he's asked if he's still there or not.

He doesn't want to reply. Doesn't want to give the creepy bastard the satisfaction.

But the writer on the other end wherever, however they're doing it, has also stolen the very breath from his lungs with one admittance in the middle of the requests not to burn the bloody book: _I've wanted to get to know you, and maybe even be your friend if that's possible, but I don't know how. I thought this...could help. No pressure, just writing privately. Doesn't matter what it's about—your day, your feelings, yourself—just so that you write and write back to me. I'll do the same._

Draco's brows arch in surprise. His eyes calm, though they reflect distrust in the lamplight. Unsure, but beyond intrigued, Draco grabs for his quill and jots down one question only. _Why?_

_Because over the years I've figured out something about you, Malfoy—you're not all what you appear to be. You do lots of strangely bad and good things, and I'd rather get to know the real you I suspect exists behind all your snark. I wanna know why you hide it._

Draco relaxes fractionally, but fear quickly takes over. He points out how easily anything he writes can and will likely just be read aloud to other students, how it's entirely untrustworthy, and even if he _did_ write in it like some idiot now that he knows someone else can _read_ what he puts down, it'll never be something _personal_.

As the mysterious other writer responds, the ink cuts off, and Draco flips the page, astounded when it continues on the other side.

They try to sound reassuring. They try to convince him that it's safe, and the person who charmed them doesn't even go to Hogwarts or have any idea what they'd be used for there.

“Perfect cheating method, honestly,” Draco thinks aloud. “Sell the damn things to some desperate students.”

What he writes down, though, are some words he hopes will scare the person off so that Draco can feel secure in never looking at this book again and be without any sort of curious regret when he goes to toss it into the fire. _What, are you my secret fucking admirer or something?_ he wonders. _I don't believe any of this, and I'm not your personal object of study, you absolute creep._

Draco waits, pulse racing with pride, the smirk bold on his lips. No ink comes. Contented, he lifts his hand to shut the book one final time and prepare for bed, but as he moves to do so, one word appears below his writing.

 _Yes_.

His heart skips with a romantic flutter he didn't expect, and it clashes with the eeriness of the entire experience in his head. _Yes, what?_ he asks. _Yes, you're trying to study me like some disturbed Ravenclaw in guise of offered 'friendship,' is that it?_

_No._

_Then yes to what?_ Draco rolls his eyes. He demands a name, a House, anything identifying. _If you won't tell me something, then clearly you know I won't be your friend because I already find you annoying._

The writer hesitates on the other end, a small accidental splotch of ink appearing by itself. Then, with struggle Draco can somehow sense through the paper, the font begins again, telling him: _What if I'm just shy sometimes? What if I feel like I'd make a mess of it trying this in person? What if you'd never give me the time of day_ because _of my House, name, or whatever?_

“Merlin, it must be a self-conscious Hufflepuff,” Draco groans, then laughs and almost wakes Blaise. “How bizarre.”

_As for the yes before...I guess you could call me a secret admirer, but only lately._

Only lately. Only _after_ the War, Draco assumes, looking away awkwardly. Suspiciously.

When he doesn't reply, the nervous writer on the other end starts up again, distracting him. _Look, I...thought about you over the summer. Quite a bit, actually._

Draco blushes in uncomfortable awareness and also flattered nerves. It's not often girls tell him that they fancy him, not with Pansy scaring them off as his friend. And it's silly _anyway_ when they do because, well, he's....

The mere idea that it _could_ be a bloke writing him like this is suddenly intoxicating to consider, but he sobers quickly with the entire thing seeming quite overwhelming and far too weird. Moodily, he covers the running emotions with a sharply written, _You know you seem disturbed, yes?_

_I'm not intending to be, but I get it, yeah. Sorry._

He shakes his head, too on the edge to like this.

More words appear.

_I promise I'm not trying to be creepy. I promise I'll tell you my name sometime. I just want some time without that first. The point is to get to know each other without those identifying factors. No bias._

Draco scowls, ink digging in with the harshness of his hold on the quill in his response. _Bit late for that, isn't it, given how you know my identity and now I know you...think about me however you do._

_I know, I know. I'm sorry. How about you call me something in here 'til then? Gives you a name to associate with, right?_

_Like what? I'm sure I can think of an_ appropriate  _list._

_No, Malfoy. Yours would be...not friendly. How about... ~~Dud~~ —Prongs. Yeah, Prongs. That'll work._

_Prongs? The fuck? What's the other you scratched out?_

_Just a placeholder name to write to me that you can't associate with anyone. You might remember something about the other one, so I'm not finishing it._

_You're mental._

_A bit, yeah, I think. Merlin knows I almost talked myself out of this many times before I decided to go through with the idea. Getting the diary to you was the hardest part. Took a while. Thankfully people gave me the opportunity in the hallway. Then I kept waiting for you to write so I could explain._

Draco's eyes widen, and he sits back.

The person was in the hall. The person could be the one witch who ran into him, the witch searching for her books, the witch's friend with the purse, or _any_ fucking bystander there and gone. It could even be a group _of_ the people who'd been there, all in on it together to gang up on him. Who knows if anyone had handled his bag before Potter had gotten his hands on it?

 _Potter_ , his brain repeats, stunning him breathless.  
  
His heart pounds intensely with something he doesn't understand, and he shakes his head, terrified of that and also completely skeptical for _many_ reasons. His voice croaks slightly as he concludes, “No, no. I think not.”

With his rival intentionally removed from the mental list and the awareness of just how _vulnerable_ he is to this faceless person being possibly anyone in the hall that day, humiliation overtakes his curiosity.

 _Piss off, freak_ , he scrawls rapidly, and flips the book shut with force.

Furious, Draco shoves to his feet and stomps softly enough in his slippers to the door to avoid waking Blaise. He yanks the door open and runs with the shut diary up to the common room that is thankfully empty for the moment. Draco stares into the fire going in the large stone fireplace there, jaw flexing with anger.

His arm moves to toss the diary into the flames, but his elbow catches, and his fingers don't let go. Won't. It infuriates him more. Draco considers using his wand instead to burst the stupid thing for better destruction and catharsis after the past two weeks. He spins, aiming to go grab his wand, and the book falls out of his hand to the floor. Irritated, he yanks it up, and the pages shift open, revealing more writing from Prongs or whomever the fuck it is.

_I'm sorry. I really didn't mean to make this so bloody awkward. I just didn't think it'd work any other way I thought about. You have my word, even if it means little to you, that I won't tell anyone this happened. Nice to talk to you, regardless. Thanks for writing what you have. Burn the diary if you want._

Draco's gut twists with confusion. With disgust and absurd guilt, too.

 _Bye, Draco_ appears, and then the feeling of the magically aware presence is gone.

Bittersweet relief mixes with the most odd form of regret, and Draco shakes his head in refusal.

His ego tightens his fingers.

“No,” he retorts quietly, brows furrowing as he holds the diary open and stands in place. “No, you don't fucking start this and vanish, you arsehole. _No._ I get to disappear, not _you_.”

With firm steps he returns to his bedroom, grabs his quill, and scrawls one last sentence.

 _Prove it_.

\----

 

Draco wakes the next morning and, upon finding himself the only Slytherin awake in the room, retrieves the diary and opens it, tucked safely inside his bed with its drawn curtains. His wand lights the shadows better with a soft _Lumos_ , but there's no need.

There is no response. Just his reply with nothing below it, around it, or even on another page as he scans through just to be sure.

The mystery person is gone, whether just for the night and morning or for good, he doesn't know. And Draco, stubborn to his core, digs in his metaphorical heels to wait.

\----

 

Days pass.

He checks the diary every morning and every night without fail to find no new change.

Draco scowls in classes more often as a result, _very_ annoyed at first until he starts to wonder if perhaps it's better this way.

He knows nothing about the person, no way he can turn the game about. There was no clue to their name or House or anything he could identify. Not even what _year_ they are. It could be literally _anyone_ in his classes or even someone a bit younger, and that thought has him watching people he bumps into in halls and those whose gazes he meets during the period of silent waiting with its lack of change.  
  
All he knows is it isn't Zabini because Blaise was asleep the entire time.

All he _prays_ is that it isn't Crabbe and Goyle, though even with the pair combined he doubts they have the wits or the balls to try to toy with him.  
  
Pansy grunts at him for staring at the Slytherin table with squinted eyes one morning, and that in and of itself is enough to make him eliminate any from his House.

Madly, desperate in the worst need-to-know feeling he's had in a long time, he glances across in Potions to both Granger _and_ Potter, going so far as to consider his rival once more, watching the pair make arguments as to which potion brewing they wish to try for the day. Draco shakes his head, knowing he's _definitely_ losing it now with those insane impossibilities still in his head, and looks to his open text in front of him.

He's tired of waiting, even with his stubbornness, and he's over the entire matter at this point.

Draco sits impatiently through part of the lecture until they get to examine potion specimens brewed by Slughorn for their varieties in a blind test for their lessons so far in the year, and then he reaches down into his bag and pulls the black diary out. He ignores everyone at the table for a moment as he holds it against his open palm and bent knee; he dabs his quill, scribbling as he leans over for privacy.

 _Guess you proved your real intentions with your silence. Not surprising_ , he writes, unaware of the tightness in his face present to the rest around him. _Burning this tonight in the common room. Don't ever talk to me again._

Draco huffs and blows over the ink to dry it, then claps the diary shut and stows it back into his bag. He sits up straight, glances about, and finds Potter staring at him, his eyes oddly round in that lost daydreamy way the Savior's been staring about lately.

 _“_ What do _you_ want?” Draco snipes, foul mood worsening. “Look at your own fucking notes, and keep your Gryffindor eyes off of _ours_.”

“Sorry,” Potter mumbles and proceeds to ignore him again, listening to Granger ramble on about texture consistency being a factor in identification.

Draco glares once more at his rival for good measure, then shifts his attention to the bottle between he and Blaise, feeling disappointed without understanding why.

 

 

_\----_

 

 

That night once he's eaten dinner, showered, and done some homework, Draco decides to finish the evening by tossing the diary into the fireplace and making sure it sizzles up before he goes back to his dorm to hopefully sleep more restfully than he has in weeks now.

He waits in the common room, talking with Pansy a bit as she rants over some Ravenclaw she finds attractive, bitter with herself over it somehow, her vanity feeling challenged in a good way for a change. He waits with his eyes on the clock and hums of agreement coming from his throat every so often to show her he's listening. When she finally runs out of energy close to nine o'clock, Pansy kisses his cheek, pats his head, and darts down the left side of stairs to the girls' dorms, leaving him alone in the common room.

Draco takes his chance.  
  
He gets off the sofa, pulls the diary out from under the cushion, and walks to the fireplace.

Fingers brush over the handsome leather front, and he thinks it's a shame. At the very least, it _would_ have been a nice diary if it wasn't charmed by some mysterious arsehole.

Draco scoffs and lets go of the diary with a toss, watching it fly through air as the clock strikes and commences its nine chimes. And in the same instant it sails right above the fire, Draco _also_ feels the sudden _presence_.

“Fuck!” he gasps, jerks his wand out, and calls out the fastest _Accio_ spell he's ever used.

The diary flings back to his hand _right_ before it would have been singed, the paper not curling yet but very warm along the one edge, the leather itself toasty. Hurriedly he opens the book with the risk to his skin, thumb holding the front cover and inside page, flipping another until he gets to the one he'd written in during class.

There's ink in it. Lots. Lines and lines since sometime likely around lunch or after, when he'd left it in his dorm to dispose of later. Draco blinks his wide eyes, his lips parting as he reads quickly:

_Fuck, I thought you'd already burned this. Please tell me you're there._

_Draco? Draco, are you there or not?_

_Please say something. Anything._

_Damn it. I'm sorry. I will prove it, if you'll let me._

And there, at the bottom, appearing right in front of him is forlorn regret.

 _I guess it's too late_ , Prongs writes with Draco's heart thudding away in his chest. _You're probably burning it right now, and the feeling is there because you held it and it's being burned up. Maybe this won't even show up on the page. Regardless, I just want you to know...even if you never read this...that I'm glad you tried to write me again. It tells me I was right. There_ is _more to you_.

The aware presence begins to fade rapidly.

Draco rushes back downstairs, relieved and shaken, and bursts into the dorm, startling the fuck out of Goyle and Crabbe playing cards across their beds.

“Draco, you good?” Greg asks him, brows up.

He nods, not turning around, just searching for his quill and ink. He retrieves the feather as fast as he can, opens the inkwell, dips the tip and starts writing.

_It was almost in the fire. You're lucky I'm quick with my wand, arsehole._

No reply.

Draco growls in frustration and bangs his brow to his desktop. “Fucking _idiot_.”

“What, mate?” Crabbe questions, sounding very puzzled. “I didn't do anythin'.”

“Not you.”

“Ah. Okay, then....”

Grey eyes zone in on the page as he waits, his mind _demanding_ that Prongs write him back _now_. He wants a reason for why this whole incident has felt strange. He wants to know why he didn't just toss the book the first second he could, and why he kept writing back and didn't burn it the first time. He wants to know _why_ he's remotely curious and interested in this person, and he _doesn't_ want to admit that the possibility of it being a bloke fancying him in secret is _that_ shockingly fucking delightful.

Just when he almost smashes his brow to the desk harder in a form of ridiculous self-punishment, the awareness surges back strongly. Draco scoots his chair closer, eyes open and unblinking, drying out with the harsh screech of the chair upon the stone floor making his two friends in the room grumble at him for the noise.

_Draco?_

_Yes_ , he writes.

_Oh thank Merlin. That was fucking close, wasn't it._

_Closer than you'd want to know. You're fucking dramatic, you know that._

_I'm sorry. I got distracted by people in the dorm._

_Should be sorry, then. Arsehole._

_Are you okay?_

Draco ignores the whispers of Crabbe and Goyle watching him alternately reading and writing furiously. He concentrates solely on the page as it continues over again, answering, _I guess_. _Why?_

Prongs doesn't write back immediately. Draco can almost picture the nameless person thinking, the hand hovering above the parchment like his own is.

Eventually the perfect cursive, one that seems _too_ perfect to his eye and probably a result of an illusion of some sort as well, starts appearing once more.

 _I worried all afternoon. Felt terrible. Just hope you're okay. You've seemed really stressed, and after finally seeing what you'd written, I figured it was because of me doing all of this_ , Prongs answers him. _So, are you all right?_

Draco's intense frown changes to something suspicious. _How would you know I'm stressed?_

_I...see you. Sometimes._

_You're stalking me, aren't you? Should've just burned this bloody thing._

_No, no, I'm not stalking you. It's school, silly. I see you around._

_What's your House, then?_ Draco demands, quill scratching the paper.

_Not saying. Sorry. I'll admit I'm around your age._

Draco rests his back to the chair and rubs his neck. _How can I believe you?_

_I remember things. Like badges you've charmed. Or that time you angered a hippogriff._

_You mean when that bloody chicken swiped at me_ , Draco grumbles, memory already back on that birdbrain, his father, and the hateful looks from everyone not his friends in class.

_Maybe you should have given it more credit to its intelligence and bowed._

_Maybe I don't bow to a bird. Don't expect me to bow to you, either._

_I'm not a Ravenclaw._

_I said nothing. You took the implication there._

_Don't play like you didn't want me to do so. I_ know _you, Malfoy. You're sneaky._

Draco doesn't notice the smile over his lips or the heat to his cheeks. “Damn.”

“Huh?” Goyle grunts, pulling his focus away. “I swear, Draco, you're gettin' bloody weird lately.”

“Vince always holds when he has shit cards,” Draco mutters, distracting Goyle as desired. “He bluffs.”

“Hey!” Crabbe yells when Goyle shouts triumphantly and calls.

Grey eyes drift back down to the diary. Prongs asks him if he's still there. _Yes_ , he jots down, checking on the pair of clods now shoving each other playfully.

_I've got work I need to finish for tomorrow. You...ah...gonna keep writing from now on?_   
  
_I don't know. Should I? Is it pointless? Weird? I'm writing in a diary that writes back as someone I cannot see is doing the same._

_Yeah, well. It'd be nice anyway._

_If you answer two questions._

_Depends, and you know it, Malfoy. Accept that you don't have entire control over this. Over me._

_Fine, then. I do know you, right? We've spoken. And you said you'd tell me your name soon._

_You could say we've known each other since our first year_ , Prongs answers, and the amusement is almost palpable through the magic. _And I'll tell you my identity sometime, sure,_ if _you promise you'll...think about still writing me after and keeping this between us should you not._

“Hm,” Draco murmurs, mind already running with possibilities. His is a fairly decent sized year across all four Houses to consider, even with some deciding against returning for term.

_What's the second question?_

_You said you're...my secret admirer. That you thought about me over summer. Explain._

_Um._

_I'm waiting._

_I'm aware. Look, I've grown to...well, admire you some, honestly. Lots of thinking led me to understand despite the past that you're braver than I'd imagined. You carry weights you never talk about that no one else even considers you might, and that's something we have in common. You're also deeper than I thought, selfish but not so selfish you couldn't...turn it 'round at the end._  
  
Draco swallows, fighting the blush threatening his cheeks. He tosses out quick distance with an angled, _That all?_  
  
 _Yes. No. Fine, maybe I also thought about you. Your hair. Your eyes. The way you...look great dressed so nice all the time. That...stuff._

Draco's jaw drops as his blood pounds through his body.  
  
He can get the answer to the burning question unyielding over his thoughts, he knows it in his gut, if he just tries _very_ carefully. Draco almost feels the slightest bit bad for the manipulation he whips up, but he jots it down anyway with selfish need to know, saying in the black, _Tell me something this dangerously personal about you, and I must just trust you the_ slightest _bit. Are you a bloke admitting this to me?_

The paper stays unblemished after his question for a total of two solid minutes, though the presence never wavers for a single second of that one hundred and twenty that he counts diligently.

Then, his heart racing to the point he can _hear_ the blood rush through his ears, an answer finally appears. His lungs can't catch up fast enough, his eyes dry from not blinking.

_Okay. Well. This is awkward._

_Everything's awkward, you twit. And there's plenty else for me to judge you for than this._

_Fine, if it makes you trust me, then I'll be honest._

_Then?_

_...yes_ , comes the answer, written almost with an implied sigh.

Draco's teeth gleam in his thrilled grin. He takes a giant breath of relief, of curiosity, of _yes_.

Un-fucking- _believable_.

“Why are you smiling like that?” Blaise asks as he comes through the door beside him. “Cut it out. You're turning into a boggart.”

“Dunno, Zabini, he's been like this. Talkin' to himself, writin' in that diary like a madman. Now he won't stop grinnin' like one.”

“Maybe he's writing a story about you, Goyle,” Crabbe cackles away. “About how fuckin' hopeless you are at cards, mate.”

Goyle scoffs. “Fuck off, Vince.”

Draco's arm snakes down to his bag, and his Potions text bounces off of Crabbe's head, knocking the idiot over onto his blankets. Goyle laughs and points. Zabini commends him for his aim and opens his trunk somewhere behind Draco.

Draco looks down again.

_Pretend I never said I've thought about you, if you want. I'll drop it all, I swear. I want to try to be friendly more than anything, to get to know you fairly. Okay? Or...is this gonna be a problem?_

“Not a problem if you're worth it,” he mumbles, fingers moving the quill in time with his lips. _Calm it, will you?_

“See, he's doin' it again,” Goyle says, shaking his head. “Might need to get looked at.”

Zabini snickers. Crabbe rubs the side of his head with a small groan.

_Does that mean what I think it does?_

_It means I'm not bothered by your admiration, and I will hold this confession as evidence if you_ ever _leak anything about_ me _. Consider yourself on probation, Prongsy-boy._

_Okay! I, uh, wasn't expecting you to, well...I figured you'd be disgusted or something. Thanks for being honest. I don't feel as foolish, I guess._

_Shocking, I know, but even I can have sympathy. So no, I'm not disgusted. Don't thank me yet, though. You'll likely discover how terrible your idea to befriend me was and burn your own copy. And if you tell anyone anything about_ me _,_ _I'm tearing out this page and showing Crabbe and Goyle this book and letting them write to you._

_Don't worry, I won't. I'll date these so we can keep track easier of conversations. This might be stupid to say, but I can't stop smiling. I'm nervous, but it's okay._

Draco's nerves won't stop dancing through him. It's how he feels, written there by someone else, and that is too surreal. Quickly he tries to calm down, to take control of his emotions and runaway curiosity. _Thought you had to go? Amazing how one can babble even in writing._

_Yes! Okay, gotta go. And Draco—thanks._

Draco signs his neutral farewell without conveying his own unending interested smiling sentiment in turn, and as he snaps the book shut and sticks it firmly in his bag by his bed, his grey eyes become aware of the considering naughty looks entering the faces of Crabbe and Goyle.

 

 

\----

 

 

The final days of August pass with exceptional pleasantness punctuated with careful watch of the diary's location and where his two bumbling mates are.

He and Prongs write only a little bit, both seeming nervous and cautious in asking how the days unfold. Prongs doesn't want to give away any time he clearly _is_ around Draco, and Draco, at least for now, needs that bit of space.  
  
So they grumble about homework loads. They exchange class preferences they have. Quidditch matches they've seen and preferred players on professional teams. Little things, yet important things, of everything and nothing all the same, all slowly building a reflecting foundation with every additional line of ink.

Draco likes what he discovers, even if he still holds reservations about it at first.

For instance, Prongs apparently has a birthday not too far after his own. And Prongs doesn't read much, preferring to learn by action where Draco doesn't mind reading. Prongs is hesitant yet bold. Hopeful yet occasionally bashful. Draco knows this because he _has_ to ride the line of curious intention, alternating between neutral, coy, and blurringly flirtatious words designed to keep himself safe and keep Prongs vulnerable and begging him to keep writing to the secretive bloke.

Between keeping a close eye on Crabbe and Goyle's locations, Draco finds himself checking the diary each morning and every night, looking for salutations from his mysterious new possible friend and...occasionally...leaving his own first when it seems Prongs is busy. The pages fill sometimes in little chunks, others in larger batches in one sitting. And when Draco holds the diary in his hands, transferring it between his bag and desk, he likes the weight of it. The feeling of accomplishment with its less empty pages, the feeling of magic that appears each time Prongs activates it.

After two weeks they compare distances on chocolate frog jumps in a competitive yet daring evening of writing that _definitely_ covers something else being said, and Draco feels the smallest change starting. Maybe it's Prongs being self-conscious and embarrassed in a way that somehow Draco feels and finds himself enjoying, or maybe it's Draco himself terrified of how _nice_ it is to just _talk_ without expectation of him, but either way, he begins to slowly relax.

Personal topics are still readily avoided when he can do it, but he gets more comfortable with answering small questions—like what the Manor's layout is like and family traditions he grew up around. He even adjusts with the act of handwriting itself, though he mentions his wrist cramping once or twice to Prongs' energetic and apologetic wince through the pages. He also calls Prongs on his _too_ neat script, forcing the unnamed bloke to admit he's using a spelled nib to write in case Draco could possibly know the writing style.

Draco finds he appreciates that bit of cleverness in spite of his desire for _some_ sort of clue, and it makes him aware that with all the little things he's learning and all the little things he's sharing...he probably wouldn't know Prongs if they passed in the hall. His personal bubble of emotional distance has worked well for years, and the acknowledgement of that is...weirdly discomforting.

Still. The change of the diary's effect continues in positive ways.

His steps aren't so heavy, his shoulders are not so weighted, and sometime in the third week of growingly comfortable correspondence, he taps his fingers along the desk in Potions, spinning a bit on his stool before class begins. Blaise gives him a grumpy elbow, but Granger manages to smile at him, seeming in a good mood herself.

Potter watches him, a strange half-smile curving the side of his lip. “You're in a good mood.”

“Not even _you_ can jinx it,” Draco rumbles at him. Not even _Potter_ can ruin the odd confidence running through him since he'd ruffled Prongs' hidden feathers that morning from dishing how nicely his vest he'd chosen to wear today looks under his House robes. He snickers at his rival. “Observe elsewhere why don't you.”

“Fine, Malfoy,” Potter mutters, hands raised in mock surrender. “Just wondered why.”

“None of your business, Potter.”

“ _Okay_ , then.”

Draco rolls his eyes once Potter looks away. “Am I disallowed good moods? Must everything I feel, do, or say be _justified_ to your scrutiny, Potter?”

“No,” Potter answers, seeming rather embarrassed for once. “Just...have rarely seen you in a good mood before that didn't involve ruining someone else's day.”

“Judgmental prick,” he snipes, then wads some parchment and bounces it off of Potter's wild hair. To his mild surprise, Potter doesn't sneer. He smiles. Draco's chest tightens at it, and he mutters to save himself, “Stop pointing it out, idiot, lest you drag my mood down.”

Potter bites his lip, trying not to laugh. But those famous green eyes of his are the warmest he's ever seen them be near him. It's quite possibly the most pleasant exchange they've ever fucking had over the years, and the rest of the table takes _notice_.

Granger coughs politely, eyeing him. “Feeling good about coming midterm exams?”

“No, not that,” Draco grumbles. “Not everyone looks forward to tests weeks in advance the way _you_ do, Granger.”

“His curtains were closed again this morning,” Blaise drawls, getting everyone's attention as he glances to his pristine trimmed nails and looks smug as ever. “Malfoy had a little private moment to himself. What a way to start the day.”

Draco's cheeks flush as Granger gasps across from them and Potter's eyes magnify behind his glasses. Draco shoves at Blaise, almost knocking the elegant Zabini from his chair. “Did not, you fucking arse!”

“Curtains. Closed.”

“Yeah, so I can fucking write down thoughts in peace in the morning with Crabbe and Goyle's loud snores.”

“You write?” Granger politely asks, seeming curious. Nosy Know-It-All. “Poetry?”

“I don't write _poetry,_ ” Draco snaps, rosy cheeked and not wanting to give away _anything_ about his secret correspondence.

Potter shrugs. “Likely a diary or something, 'Mione. Lots of people keep one.”

Draco swallows when Granger nods suddenly at Potter with a smile. The pair stare a moment.

Grey eyes narrow at the nonchalant way Potter turns to view Slughorn at the next table.

Blaise laughs, distracting Draco from his tight observance. “Now _that_ I know he does. Always looking in there like it's talking back to him or something. Even mutters to himself. Has Goyle thinking Draco's gone mad.”

Granger and Potter look back to him, Granger with some new sort of acceptance and Potter with that half-smile broadening into something soft and full that makes him even more handsome.

Draco kicks at the stool under Blaise to stop focusing on Potter's smile. To stop feeling embarrassed and on the spot. To stop being _pleased_ with how oddly comfortable the atmosphere between the four usually sour people currently feels.

Blaise almost falls off the other side of his seat, and Draco breaks into a cackle.

And when Zabini, Granger, _and_ Potter all laugh together at his rotten grin, Draco finds it strangely doesn't annoy him like he imagined it would.

 

\----

 

  
  
He's distracted from everything—classwork, his sandwich at lunch—as Goyle and Crabbe laugh hysterically across the table and squirt lime wedges at one another.

Within five minutes Draco himself has become a side target, and when some of the juice hits near his eye, his twitching fingers debate going for his wand. After a moment when he feels Prongs' energy surround the diary in his bag at his side, he reaches for his quill instead, the black book quickly opening just enough to scribble.

 _Mind sending a spell at these two for me?_ Draco requests. _I know you're near your diary._

 _Huh?_ Prongs writes back confusedly.  _What two? Hold on._  
  
Draco looks up, but of course several people are talking. There's a few dozen conversations happening in the Great Hall, and none that he can see involving a diary on a table like his own. Out of instinct his eyes slide Potter's way, and he finds his rival's arms crossed over the table upon some texts. His hair is wild upon his head, his lenses reflect the flames of the floating candles. Parchments are rolled up next to him, resting at Granger's elbow. Potter discusses something with Longbottom and Lovegood nearby, and then he does something interesting.

Potter nods at his friends, but his green eyes lock on Draco not a breath after.

He didn't scan the room. He didn't look somewhere else and notice Draco staring.

Potter had just _instantly_ looked at Draco.

Both of them immediately startle, eyes darting everywhere _but_ each other.

He sighs to himself, muttering under his breath, “He's just developed a weird sense of knowing when you look. That's all. Stop thinking.”

“You say somethin'?” Goyle asks, muffin in hand now, lime dropped away fucking finally. “I know I heard your voice again.”

Crabbe swallows down the last of his chicken leg, pointing it at Draco. “Goyle, I think something's wrong with Malfoy. What do you think?”

“Seems 'bout right. He's got that book out again.”

Draco yanks the diary off the table and stuffs it into his bag again at his side. “Don't even think about it.”

“Someone's still worried we'll read his diary,” Crabbe snickers. He waits until Zabini and Pansy quiet down, and then he posits, “Zabini, what'cha think Draco's writing about all hours of the day, mm?”

Draco pales as Zabini's dark, interested eyes shift over him, Pansy's following.

“Who knows, Crabbe,” Zabini titters with a smirk. “Maybe about how you annoy the fuck out of him.”

“If he's writing about anyone annoying him, then it's Potter,” Pansy contests with a naughty grin flashed at him. “I can only imagine the rants in there. Ooo. Draco, give us a peek.”

“Piss off, all of you,” Draco spits at their collective laughter and pushes from the table, storming out with his bag and diary. He doesn't slow until he hits the dorms, doesn't relax more until he's through the painting, doesn't open the front cover of the black leather until he's firmly tucked away behind his bed curtains, a single crack in the cover for light to peek through from his lamp. Ink's already scribbled down for him to read by the time he is situated.  
  
 _Sorry, I was listening to someone_ , Prongs comments.  _Everything okay?_

 _Just Crabbe and Goyle. Then Blaise and Pansy. They were getting nosy_ , he explains, wondering if his faceless acquaintance had been in the Great Hall after all. _They think I'm mental writing to you all the time, and there's even the occasion where I wonder if I agree. Sometimes you don't even feel real. I have to look in here to remind myself it's not just me, that I'm not writing all of it and tricking my brain._

_Draco, I'm sorry. I promise I'm definitely real._

_It's fine_ , he counters. _Just talk._

Prongs does. Draco reads nonsensical personal stories about love potions in chocolates and a bizarre appreciation for house elves and socks, and he passes out there in bed, diary open next to him, quill clutched gently, fingers across pages where, eventually without replies, Prongs understands and wishes him good night.

 

\----

 

Draco takes his breakfast sometime the next week in the Great Hall with Goyle and Zabini. Crabbe tries to sleep in as late as possible, like he often does. Pansy's likely still putting her damn makeup on, always dangerously using her wand to guide the black near her eyes. Goyle voraciously eats his fourth egg with toast as Blaise contemplates where the fuck Greg puts it all, and Draco sits nearby with his own eggs and sausages, eating small bites in delightful distraction.

Prongs is writing as Draco eats there at the table, quill and diary blocked with one of his arms for privacy. Draco swallows his breakfast and juice slowly, still a little unsure about this new wavering trust he's starting to develop, but he's entertained enough to read and respond....especially when he'd opened it to find Prongs rambling about someone snoring in his dorm all bloody night keeping him up.

 _Ever think McGonagall has coughed up a hairball?_ Draco wonders in the pages, hoping to distract the tired writer on the other end.

 _I really could have done without that image_ , Prongs chastises him. _Thanks, Malfoy._

_Anytime._

_Arse. I hope she hasn't._

_Maybe that's not porridge in her bowl up there._

_Now you're gonna make me sick, Draco. Ugh, please stop._

Draco's eyes light up. A lead, if a silly one. _Wouldn't want to puke up those eggs of yours, no._

_How would you know if I'm having eggs?_

_Aren't you?_

_You know I can't say._

_But you are in the Great Hall eating._

_Could be. Could be in the library or still in my dorm._

_You should stand up right now. Wave your arm. Say hello, Prongsy, like a proper fellow._

_Not a chance, Malfoy._

Draco's breathing increases, his chest heaving with excitement at the fact that Prongs _didn't_ deny it again. He tuts his tongue, and he does a quick scan about the huge room. There's loads of students crowding at all the tables. He spots some faces that are familiar, a few from classes in the Ravenclaws like Boot and a Hufflepuff or two. No one has a diary out. No one is writing except one much younger frightened Ravenclaw getting a calm lecture from Lovegood. Across to the Gryffindor table near its big middle full of younger years also sits the usual mess of faces always together: Longbottom, Granger, Finnigan, Thomas, two Weasleys, and Potter.

Draco's eyes narrow.

Granger's writing, as always, but she's no bloke. Ron Weasley's at her right, writing something as well and showing it to her as if begging her to fix whatever it is. So not Weasel, then, and thank Merlin for that. Weasley's sister is writing notes of some kind in a small book with a text open, but again—no bloke and regardless, Ginny Weasley would rather never play quidditch again than fancy being his friend or fancy him, period, and the feeling is _very_ mutual.  
  
Longbottom and Thomas are talking with Finnigan. No parchments in sight.

And Potter is to Granger's left, eating something out of a bowl. Occasionally Potter nods to Longbottom across from him and then he glances down with a yawn, spoon in his hand. A spoon, not a quill or pen. Potter's other free fingers brush some fringe from his glasses and fall to his lap below the table's top.

Draco almost dismisses the absurdity entirely, but freezes for a second when his eyes light on the inkwell next to Potter's bowl.

“ _No_ ,” he whispers to himself, eyes hyper focused upon that little black bottle.

His heart stutters in its beat yet again at the very _idea_ that he's refused to completely cross his mind each time it tries, and before he can remotely consider how he would truly feel if it _were_ Potter, Granger adjusts and dips her quill into it, then goes back to writing something on Ron's parchment for him.

“Oh,” Draco mumbles, feeling oddly bereft. He sighs and eats more of his breakfast to distract himself from the weird thoughts in his head.

 _You're not going to figure it out_ , the teasing blooms in handsome black upon the paper next to him. _I'm being very careful._

Draco grins, glances one more time around the room, and replies, _You saw me looking._

_Yep._

No one made eye contact with him before, and none do when he tries again.

_Give it up, Draco, and just talk to me._

_About what_ , he wonders, visibly pouting.

_What's your—_

_—black_ , Draco interjects. _Or green. Next question._

_Was gonna ask about your breakfast, if it was good since you're not touching it all that much, but that verified a thought I've had for a while. You're a bit cliché for a Slytherin, you know._

_Choke on your eggs, oats, or toast,_ Draco sneers, shuts the leather front, and goes back to eating. “Judgmental arsehole.”

The energy he can feel near the diary doesn't die down at all, and he smirks to himself, looking around as he chews, hoping Prongs is seeing him ignore the diary. No one nearby moves to shove another diary into a bag. None look back to him except a few scared first or second years in the Hufflepuff section, and Draco rolls his eyes and keeps scanning. Weasley's head is now in his hands, and Granger is patting his back. Longbottom and Thomas watch Finnigan slug back a giant glass of orange juice in a single gulp. Ginny Weasley is still writing away, her free fingers following words in her book to her left.

And Potter stares at Finnigan as if not seeing him, zoning out with some odd look on his face the way he's done before to Draco in Potions class.

“The fuck's wrong with him?” Draco wonders aloud to himself, pondering yet again what Potter might be like since the death of the Dark Lord, but then he reminds his own brain that he _doesn't_ give two shits about Potter, Potter's mental state, or anything as such. Yet here he is. Staring. Feeling himself zone out over Potter's dumb, handsome face.

“Hey, Draco, you're good at this Charms stuff. Help,” Goyle groans, the last slice of toast near them in his hand being waved over some untidy parchments.

Zabini snorts into his tea. “Please do. It might shut him up.”

Draco sighs, tosses the diary into his bag, and shifts down the table, _just_ missing the hidden pen rising above the table across the room as it gets shoved into that inkwell he'd held his breath over.

 

\----

 

That night as he finishes some work for Potions reading while the rest of his dorm mates all try to push through their own chapters, he feels the pulse in the already opened diary that lies to the right of his text on counteractions.

_It's fine that you like black and green, you know. I was teasing._

_Whatever_ , he responds, writing while barely looking, trying to focus on his last two pages of reading.

_You look good in them. Especially black. Suits you._

He pauses, hand ready to turn his page in the Potions chapter. Quickly his hand scribbles, _Ah, yes, because black is what evil wizards wear, and as a Slytherin it's simply the only thing I can be._

Annoyed, he ignores the immediate ink appearing in his peripheral under his response. He pushes himself to finish the last page of his reading. When he slumps over the desk afterward, quite tired, his grey eyes crack enough to read Prongs' writing.

_I used to wonder, but not anymore._

Draco's face falls. He reads and rereads that sentence over and over.

 _Upset you?_ Prongs infers from his silence. _Sorry._

 _No, it's ignorance I practically expect from anyone not Slytherin_ , Draco corrects Prongs honestly. _Just...why?_  
  
 _Why what?_

_Why did you change your mind?_

_Because even though you're an arse, I've seen you smile. I like it. I told you I have a feeling there's something good behind it._

_Even so, you silly badger, not all of us have souls to bare._

_It would serve you right, wouldn't it, having to make friends with a Hufflepuff after all your issues._

_Shut up._

_I bet you have a good soul in there, though, and you're just scared to show it to anyone because they might see how good it can be._

_Maybe you just want to see good in me that isn't there, idiot._

_Maybe_ you _don't want to see good that_ is _, prat._

Draco snickers and chews over his lower lip. “Cheeky.”

“There he goes again,” Goyle mutters.

“Shh,” Zabini shushes them both and yanks one of his bed curtains closed to read in privacy.

Draco tells the diary goodbye for the night, Prongs doing the same, and he makes himself _reread_ all of his Potions chapter since he remembers absolutely none of it the second he glances back.

 

\----

 

  
_I'm glad you're my friend. I like this._

_Would be nice to be able to_ see _my supposed friend at breakfast._

_Draco, you know why I—let me have my name still. Just for a little while longer._

_Fine._   
  
_I'm sorry. I told you I'm just afraid you won't like me if I do._

_Oh stuff it. We get on fine._

_Yeah, in_ here _. You might not out there._

_So I don't actually like you, then. As I suspected._

_Malfoy, to be fair, you don't get on with_ many _people. But we've not had nice conversations in passing, no. Not normally. That's_ why _I'm glad we write in here, why I'm glad I took the risk to know you this way. It's going well, I really think it is, and you seem really happy lately._

_How would you know? Spying on me, still?_

_It's not like I can't notice. I see you often. We literally eat in the same room three times a day._

_That we do. Well, well, well. Perhaps I'll just fast tomorrow at breakfast and take in the sights._

_You know I'm not making it that easy. I never have in there for any meal._

_Fine, fine._

_My point is, Malfoy, I'm glad you're happier. It's selfish, I guess, but I hope it's because of me somehow._

_Very egoistical of you_ , Draco retorts, grinning to himself in bed. _But possibly not incorrect._

 _Well, it's nice to see_ , Prongs writes. _You don't smile that much._

Draco frowns. How preposterous. _Well, what have I to smile for?_

_I don't know. Sometimes you do because something makes you laugh. And sometimes you do...but not in a genuine way, at least, because it doesn't come without some rude comments on someone's behalf. I don't know what...really does make you happy, to be honest._

_You're in a mood, clearly_ , Draco grunts as he underlines the word mood twice.

_Just curious._

_About what?_

_You. Does making those sorts of comments make you happy, really?_   
  
_You're ruining my good mood, Prongs._

_I'm sorry, I am really, but...can you answer me?_

_No._

Prongs, Draco has learned over the weeks, is a nagging insistent bastard when he wants to be, and his unknown friend rises to the occasion now. _But...Draco, why even bother picking on people to begin with when I see you sometimes later looking frustrated with yourself? Why can't you be friendlier, kinder, just...I don't know, more like you are in here, but with others, too? Are you afraid of something? Of people's opinions? Of your friends' opinions if you were? I could imagine you might be nervous that other Slytherins would mock you for it._

Draco bristles, feeling as if under Slughorn's examining glass over his Potions work. _Fuck off. I owe no explanation, and my_ friends _understand, regardless of how ridiculous they might be. You've clearly never grown up around societal Purebloods._

Prongs doesn't reply for a few minutes, and his stomach twists out of anxiety, the darker kind.

As he sits broiling between feelings of anger and judgment, Prongs adds, _I thought maybe if_ I _understood...I could let some other things go, and maybe you could see it doesn't have to be like that. That you could just be you without it all. That this...happiness you've been showing to people could just be normal, maybe._

_Bold of you to assume that what you've seen isn't me. How dare I call people out on their crap? I don't care if it makes me unpopular. I'd rather be honest—_

_—honest?_

_Yes._

_Honest. Being honest is calling someone a Mudblood?_

Teeth clench angrily.

_Or does being honest mean harassing people is okay because you feel honest about your comments?_

Draco slams the diary shut and tosses it to his feet over the blankets.

Fuck Prongs and his nosy judgmental crap. Prongs knows nothing. He knows no expectations of Draco's life. He knows no pressure from his father. He hasn't felt Draco's frustrations for years aimed at one particular trio of Gryffindors never brought to heel for consequences of their actions about the school when himself and those in his House face scrutiny for every step they take.

And just like that, Draco's good mood vanishes entirely, leaving him lost, confused, and growing more bitter by the second staring at the closed black book.

 

  
\----

   
  
  
He places the diary in his trunk to stave off the temptation of ranting into ink. He _locks_ the bloody thing after to keep Goyle and Crabbe away as they ask him for the next few days where his little book is and why he isn't babbling away at it nonsensically anymore.

Where Draco had been almost pleasant in classes, quiet yet content, taking notes and slightly lost in curious daydreaming of his faceless, nameless admirer, now he sits through each class he has scowling to himself until his lips form a tight line and nothing more.

How could Prongs claim to want to know him if his pushy questions clearly paint a picture the bloke has of Draco? What had he noticed about Draco to make him think there was more to him? Why would he _remotely_ fancy Draco if he thinks so negatively about him?

Furious by the questions bogging him down, Draco snaps more at Blaise when Zabini simply asks him to adjust on his stool to see Slughorn's notes on the board. Blaise gives his shoulder a harsh shove and snaps back, and Draco sighs, knowing his friend didn't deserve the anger. He leans belatedly for Zabini to see properly, but he hears no whisper of thanks behind him.

Across the table Granger's brows pop up, and her eyes sling around annoyingly prude, as if she'd expected this with held breath since his prior good mood around them in class.

And out the corner of his vision as Slughorn drones on at the front over the dangers of foxglove, Draco sees Potter is in some sort of foul mood, too. The Gryffindor sits forward, not looking anywhere but the boards, and his own thinner, firmer lips are in a matching tight line. He imagines Potter heard the bickering between he and Blaise just now and likely has some annoyance he'd like to speak about Draco's attitudes, Draco's selfishness, or Draco's immaturity.

With a roll of his eyes at the imagined response, Draco focuses forward, too, never noticing Potter's frustrated expression shift into something of determination.

 

\----

 

Nearly the final week of September passes with the diary locked away, and Draco spends what time on another Friday night he could be spending conversing with Prongsy instead staring up at the canopy of his bed. The questions Prongs asked him seem to have been blazed into Draco's head. They even appear in the form of Potter, oddly enough, in one of his dreams, wherein Draco finds himself forced to sit at their Potions table listening as Potter asks those same questions directly to his face.

Of course his stupid mind would pick Potter for the role. Who else could represent both his agitation at the questions and yet the seemingly righteous demand of Prongs at the same time? Who else fits what his bloody subconscious wants and _always_ has despite his own reservations about it?

He grinds his teeth, too stuck on it all.

Why can't he be friendlier? What a question. He'd rather ask why can't he have boundaries.

Is he afraid of something? Sure. Death. Failing his family, or at the least his mother. Being lost.

Does being honest mean harassing people is okay? Pointing out hypocrisy aside, Draco _can_ admit in some interpersonal relationships he has been quite brutish. He's mocked Potter's parents, which upon more mature reflection was and still is tasteless and too far, especially for _why_ he'd done so in his green jealousy of rejection. And he knows that out of anyone he's sniped after, Potter's the biggest target with the most complicated reasons he's _still_ trying to suppress.

Why even bother picking on people if he only seems frustrated after?

Draco frowns, his stubborn continued anger over the last five days slipping finally. Old answers readily spring to the surface, catalogued and prepared for many years. Yet...strangely...none of them seem appealing now.

 _Does_ he get frustrated after petty arguments? Maybe.

But is his method of honesty harassment? Can he actually go too far, cross the line, and even want to do so?

Prongs' last question haunts him most with its judgment from someone he's grown to like, and for once in his life Draco really questions something without listening to the whispered, internalized words of his father.

Is it them really being dishonest? Or, perhaps, is it him and always has been him, trained to hide behind superiority like a good Pureblood, pretending his vulnerabilities never exist whilst others carry them on robe sleeves so visible and so powerful for it to bother his imparted distaste?

“Fuck,” Draco answers himself, stunned in the quiet seclusion of his bed.

 

\----

 

The following Saturday at dinner, Draco waits until many have finished before pulling the diary slowly out of his bag. His plate is still half full, but he can't stomach another bite. The idea to see if Prongs had written over the last bit with the diary in his trunk was both enticing and asphyxiating, but sitting there with it now, Draco's unsure of his decision to look inside.

Maybe Prongsy is done with him. Maybe the bloke remembered _why_ he hated Draco in the first place, or maybe the invisible figure has given up effort, irritated by his avoidance.

Conflicted on just _how_ he'd feel if so, Draco takes a breath and glances about the half-empty Great Hall with its still cheery chatter. Quietly he opens the black leather front, flipping through to where he knows the last date he'd interacted with was. The diary is quiet, the feeling missing, but it doesn't matter.

Grey eyes soften anyway in relief.

There's a single line dated halfway through the week of ignoring the diary, stating, _I hate knowing I'm the reason you've stopped smiling._

Draco blinks at that statement, at the sincerity he can somehow feel in the writing with its illusive scrawl. He's not been hiding his anger or frustration, he knows that. And he wonders now if, perhaps, his scowl the past week had continued just with the unconscious thought that Prongs, whomever he really is, would see it.

He reads and rereads that single line with its hint of melancholy.

He reads and rereads in shock that even with validity Prongs had had in questioning him as a likely target of Draco's tongue in the past, Prongsy has taken responsibility of Draco's reaction. There is penitence and understanding instead of distaste, and that extension, that vulnerability and strength in still reaching to him regardless in ink alone brings an uncomfortable swallow to his throat.

So few notice Draco in truth.

So few know how much he's suffered silently for a long time.

And here, with words alone, Prongsy has proven he notices. The illusive bloke has done the impossible and made Draco _miss_ the ghostly writer more than he can put into words, himself.

He has a choice, and he knows it. He can write back something relative, write back something completely random, or not respond at all. But with the space he'd needed from Prongs now feeling over somehow, he feels he should say _something_. Whether Prongs wants him to change or be more of himself or whatever the lost bloke is thinking, at the least the faceless wonder seems to care about his own effect on Draco.

That's more than anyone else in the entire school cares to consider.  
  
Draco blows out air tightly between his teeth. He dips his quill in his ink. And he makes his decision, feeling entirely vulnerable and utterly relieved.

 

\----

_Thanks._

_For what?_

_If I have to say it, I won't be thankful anymore._

_You berk. I can almost hear you saying that._

_Shut up. Just accept my words, will you._

_So long as you smile again._

_I am now. Happy?_   
  
_Yes, Draco. I am._

 

\----

 

It takes through the beginning of October for Draco to feel the atmosphere of his diary is back to where it had been. Crabbe and Goyle seem satisfied somehow with finding Draco nose first in it often again as Prongsy picks up the habit of morning and evening greetings, slowly at first before just going for it. The Slytherin pair snicker at him often, but they don't try to magically yank it from him with an _Accio_ now.

Draco finds himself grateful for their diversions and Prongs' routine, though he'll never say it.

Prongs must seem as silently grateful, saying at one point, _Tell me something_.

 _Something_ , Draco jots down the word with a little smile. The diary rests upon a pillow across his knees, and he floats his ink next to him with a careful levitating charm he's tweaked from a basic _Wingardium Leviosa._

_C'mon, Malfoy._

_Tell you what, Prongsy?_

_Anything. A childhood memory. Something more personal._

_Oh, fine. I once caught a little white mouse as a child and kept it as a pet, hidden from my parents, for about two weeks. I fed it bits of crumpets or snippets from Mother's flower garden and the kitchen. Father saw it, I was reprimanded, and the mouse was taken away._

_That's...really sad. What happened to it?_   
  
_I don't know. I assumed it was tossed outside to die. Your turn._

_I once used magic on my cousin without knowing what I'd done._

_How so?_

_I...made something disappear, and he got stuck somewhere as a result._

_Vague, but interesting. Got anything else, or shall I wander off now, bored?_

_Fine_ , Prongs' inky words bleed quickly into the parchment. More come, and Draco waits sitting in bed.  _Sometimes I just really want to be alone, but I don't say it. I feel like I'm lost often, but people expect me to know what I'm doing at all times. Now your turn._

Draco exhales sharply. Fair enough. _I used to hate sleeping due to nightmares I'd have. And if you don't tell people you want to be alone, then you've no one to blame but yourself for them bothering you. Stop being stupid and just say you need space._

_It's not that easy, Draco._

_If I tell Goyle and Crabbe to fuck off out the dorms for a while, they go._

_You're confident. That helps. And...well...kind of a prat sometimes—enough that people know what might come if they don't leave._

_You're not winning points here, Prongsy._

_I imagine even with your ego that you like my honesty more than arse kissing. You like people being genuine. You hate people you think aren't, right?_  
  
“Perceptive,” Draco mumbles, slightly wary from the past while of prior silence. “Too perceptive.”

Quickly he demands a change of subject, claiming boredom. But he knows he's not fooling Prongs on the other end of the ink.

 _What do you expect me to look like?_ Prongs asks, obliging him.

_I don't know, Prongsy, that's the fucking point._

_How do you hope I look, then?_

_Now that's a trap if I've seen one. You clearly aren't a Ravenclaw after all._

_Hah, yeah, I guess so. Sorry. I'm just curious. No judgment._

_Might help if you let me picture you properly._

_Back to this, are we? You sure try to dig information out of me enough._

_Well give me something—hair or eyes, face shape, even a fucking nose. Something. I don't like you being...faceless. I'll deal with your name, I'm used to it now, but faceless bothers me._

_Nothing too obvious. Hm._

Draco blinks, and before he can stop himself, he writes, _If you have red hair, I might have a fucking stroke. Request aid if I don't respond._

_Fuck, I'm not Ron Weasley! Calm the hell down._

One sharp exhale of relief later, Draco sighs. _Thank you. I couldn't imagine Weasley fancying_ me _, but I do want to laugh at it. Ugh. Okay, write._

_I have dark hair._

_Black, brown, auburn?_

_Something in there. Dark._

_Okay, you evasive arse. Is it straight? Thick? Wavy?_

_It's...wavy, I suppose? I dunno. It does what it wants._

“Hm,” Draco murmurs, trying to call up everyone in his year with dark hair.

_I have a firm jaw? Not sure how to put this. A...normal nose?_   
  
_Merlin, you are utterly terrible at this. Dreadful._

_Sorry._

Draco laughs quietly to himself, trying not to disturb the rest sleeping around him as the hour progresses toward midnight. _Do you wear lenses?_ he questions, adjusting his wand for light.

_Anything like that would narrow down options quickly considering few people our age in Hogwarts wear glasses even for reading._

_Do you?_

_Maybe._

_So you do._

_Fine, yes._

The writing stops on both ends.

For Draco, at least, he's sitting there in bed with a half buttoned night shirt already feeling too warm, his mind running with Potter's face that he keeps trying to squash back into his subconsciousness. When Prongsy doesn't say anything else, perhaps out of nervousness, Draco decides to literally throw the thought out of his head and tackle the matter for once, scribbling roughly, _Well, you're not Potter, so you must take them off after homework._

Prongs doesn't respond for a solid minute, and Draco's throat goes completely dry.

 _Dismissing him as a possibility?_ Prongs finally wonders.

 _Obviously_ , Draco replies emphatically against his rolling stomach.

 _Why?_ Prongs immediately asks, the energy around the diary almost _offended_ somehow.

 _Are you completely mad?_ Draco wonders in turn, fluttery inside. He sure feels _he's_ mad.

Prongs becomes more nonchalant, answering, _Just curious. I mean, everyone knows the pair of you don't really get on, but none really know_ why _that started._  
  
The sneer graces his lips before he can stop it. It's instinctual. He's never not been at the mercy of others' opinions about himself and Potter, just like he's always been at his _own_ mercy over it, too. When Prongs tells him it's okay, that Draco can tell him what he's really thinking, that he doesn't have to worry about being judged for it, Draco's jaw locks. But his fingers grip the quill, and he dips it in haste, almost angry as he writes.

For once Draco puts to paper thoughts he's always kept back.

For once he leans into this trust Prongs keeps offering.

For once he doesn't care if he's wrong, doesn't care if it _is_ Potter, because at least in the diary the accountability can't be traced without embarrassment on both sides.  
 _  
All I learned from people was how important he would be, and I looked up to this person I didn't know until I met him. My stupid arse tried to make friends with him, and he chose Weasley. Even if I was a bit ridiculous at that age, I was eleven, taught to act exactly as I had by society I was raised within and, believe it or not, capable of regretting some things I'd said years later, even if I didn't show it well. Not that it mattered. We've fought since, furthering that problem to the point that he hates me, and I've never said sorry for anything because some of it isn't on me; even if I could and would, he wouldn't care to hear it. So I argue with him, yes, for it's as you said—I don't like disingenuous people. Although I helped him with...with the War, we still hate each other. He's always going to be Potter. I'm always going to be me. And that's fucking that._

And that's true. It's been in the back of his head since he'd accepted the offer to come back to Hogwarts with his father in prison and his mother worried over him being back near the school. He knew he'd have to contend with sharing space with Potter all over again, and regardless of how helpful Draco had been—going so far as to aid Potter in the Manor and even arm the Chosen One in his final wand fight against the Dark Lord—their distaste would resume.

Why wouldn't it despite his supremely suppressed hope that change might happen?

 _Wait, you think he's disingenuous?_ Prongs finally scribbles after several minutes of likely reading and rereading. _You think he really hates you?_

 _Of course he does_ , Draco rants, ink spotting the page inconsistently with his anger. _He's supposed to be so sacrificing, but he's not. Not really. And he shouldn't be, either, for fuck's sake. But everyone's selfish somewhere because not all bloody selfishness is_ bad. _And people pretend like he isn't, that he's perfect and grand, like delicate crystal to show off and handle. But everyone's got problems, Prongs. Everyone has consequences, yet_ he _gets away with everything and we're supposed to respect him for it—the rest of the students who would get punished for the same shit he gets away with. So fuck that. Like, fine, I'm sorry his parents were killed and all because that_ is _horrible, but it doesn't make him immune to consequences nor give him dominion over everyone else. His fucking worth isn't greater than the rest, greater than my own, simply because of a damn unlucky prophecy, but I'd be cursed if I dare said so aloud in the halls._  
  
 _Why does he irritate you so much? What is it about him?_  
  
 _I just told you._

_Yeah, but give me a specific example?_

_Every instance of that bastard staring at me I can almost pin to him thinking I'm up to no fucking good. He's prejudiced. Biased. But he'll never admit that on his life. It might mean he could be_ wrong _about something and not be glorified as Saint Potter._

_What would you do if he was sorry about your interaction? What would you do if he did admit he was wrong and maybe has been before?_

_Walk away. I know a cursed bag of gold when I see one._

_Something about him unnerves you, doesn't it._

_Clearly something about me does him._

_Maybe you should both just talk. Get it all out._

_Why?_

_You should give him a chance, Draco. You should give Potter a chance._

_He'd have to give me one, first, and that's not happening,_ Draco insists in spite of Prongs' nameless energy pushing otherwise. _I'm not writing anything else about him. Fucking hand's gonna cramp._

_…._

_You asked a question. I answered. It's done. And if you stop writing now, you're a hypocritical bastard because you_ wanted _me to be honest._

_I'm not closing the diary. I just...you really think all that? You don't think he's not trying?_

_Yes. He still hates me, obviously. Why wouldn't he?_

_You're the one who hates him, I think._

_Next subject._

_I see._

_What's your bloody problem? Why do you somehow manage to sound sullen in handwriting? And why the fuck would you care if I do hate him? I don't have reason to like him. He'll never have reason to feel the same. The past is what it is. The future is best if we just avoid one another._

_It's sad, I guess._

_He spares no cares for me, Prongsy, so just stop worrying. Do you have nice eyes?_

_Maybe. I think so. They're...special to me._

_What about your lips?_

_Um...._

_Are they nice, too?_

_Why? Are you...?_

_Hm?_

_I'm sitting here curious as to how I'm meant to interpret that last question._

_I'm putting a generic face in my head for you. My, you've a short memory._

_Just...got distracted by...all that. Sorry._

_I'll mark it as nice, soft lips. Quite eye catching, perhaps._

_Draco...._

_What?_

_You're doing it again. You're...you know._

_I'm afraid I don't know what you mean, Prongsy-boy._

_Sure you don't._

_Your picture feels like a handsome one. I like it._

_…._

_Problem?_

_You_ are _doing it._  
  
 _Doing what?_

 _You_ know _what, you sneaky snake._

_I've just given you a friendly compliment. Take it, why don't you, you greedy thing._

_Oh I am, Malfoy. Just, um...know it's...nice, you...doing this. Flirting._

_Is that what I'm doing?_

_I swear, Malfoy, I'll send a charm through these pages and get you. Somehow._  
  
 _Maybe I'd like that. What happens to your dastardly plan of revenge then, mm?_  
  
 _Maybe it's not revenge I'm planning for, Draco. Maybe I like this._  
  
 _Maybe, hm._  
  
 _Maybe._  
  
 _I see. Well, maybe it's getting late._  
  
 _Yeah...it's past twelve now._  
  
 _Night, Prongsy_ , he signs, cheeks embarrassingly rosy. His chest is wound, tight over thoughts of Potter he doesn't want to consider and Prongs' missing face with Potter's features to fill the fogginess, but Draco finds he doesn't notice any of it, way too suddenly enthralled with the little ink smile that manifests to peer up at him.

 

\----

 

It's hard to stop thinking about that little ink smile. About the _maybe_. About the flirting he'd absolutely been doing and enjoying in the diary, feeling brave and confident even as he'd blushed so hot that it had warmed his pillows for nearly half an hour after closing the diary.

In Potions he doodles on his notes, similar little smiles like that of Prongs' on the hidden paper, and he never once catches the green eyes warm across the table as his ink trails one little grin after another. He wouldn't notice, of course, because since that discussion with his mysterious new friend that partially concerned Potter himself, Draco has done his _absolute best_ to avoid looking at the Chosen One across from him in class every other day in awkwardness of venting so much about him, if for no other reason than the thought of Potter being Prongsy reading all he's said recently across from him likely sending Draco to the Hospital Wing.  
  
Midterm exams begin to ravage everyone's concerns, and Draco becomes no exception, buried in work even at dinner through mid-October with others in his year doing the same around him. His diary is out, too, away from eyes constantly darting to notes he's got visible for Blaise or Pansy or even Greg once in a while with the Charms work. Crabbe, it seems, has given up and hoping for the best as he eats without his notes.  
  
Carefully over the last few nights, there's been more cautiously exchanged flirting, and Draco has gone along with it still in that feeling of novel bravery and confidence until the little unspoken game becomes too real.  
  
The single question from Prongs somewhere in the Great Hall has him frozen, staring down at the pages open upon his lap safely hidden from the curious pair of Crabbe and Goyle across from him.

 _Do you really fancy anyone?_ Prongs wonders.

Bold. Very bold, Draco thinks, eyes glancing up and about the room over the heads of his friends. When he finds no one focused upon him, as he'd expected, he shakes off the rattled feeling of Prongs' direct question by asking, _Fishing for something about you, perhaps?_

 _Just curious._  
  
He doesn't reply.

This makes his secret friend in the room nervous, apparently, for Prongsy adds, _Sorry. Forget it._

Draco downs the last of his water in his goblet, tunes out Zabini arguing with Pansy near his side of the seats, and answers, feeling quite exposed, _I'm not involved with anyone._

_Oh?_

_That's so surprising? People hate me, and I hate them. And outside of you, I didn't know anyone even really fancied me besides some girls finding me attractive._

_But do you fancy anyone? Or are you, you know, not someone who experiences attraction or the like?_

_I...might fancy someone._

The words are barely seeping into the page before Prongs writes, _Have you told them?_

_No. Of course not._

_Why not?_

_If they wouldn't spit at me first for it, I doubt they'd keep it to themselves._

_Who?_

“I'm not telling you,” Draco mumbles to himself, thankful the noise around him blocks out his words to catch the ears of friends. _I'd rather no one ever know that information. Not exactly...comfortable with those feelings._

_You aren't okay with having them?_

_No._

_Any reason?_

_No, it's...I shouldn't have them._

_Hey. You're allowed to be attracted to...well, whatever or whoever you are._

_I'm aware. It's not about that._

_Okay. I swear I won't tell anyone if you have something you want to talk about._

_I don't._

_If you're sure._

Draco bites his lower lip and asks instead, _Why me?_  
  
 _Um._

_Not so fun being put on the spot, now is it, Prongsy-boy?_

_I get it. Sorry._   
  
_No answer, then?_

_Maybe I'll answer you if you answer me. Why shouldn't you feel attracted to the person you like?_

_Prongsy—_   
  
_Don't you trust me even a little yet?_

“Yes,” Draco murmurs as Goyle and Pansy bicker over Greg spilling her inkwell. _I suppose_ , he writes.

 _You do?_ Prongs signs, and the happiness is there in the energy of the connected diaries.

 _Yes_ , Draco admits, smiling to himself. He looks up one more time. No one's looking at him...and over where the Gryffindors gather, Potter seems distracted with some debate over food.

Draco sighs.

Not like Prongs can _see_ him staring at Potter through the damn pages, he supposes. Or, rather, he  _hopes_.

Invigorated by the progress, Prongs' mood continues to swing upward. _Great!_

_Answer me. You said you find me attractive. Have. What do you find attractive about me?_

_Um. That's...about me again._   
  
_Oh come on. How did you not see this coming?_   
  
_All right. I like your...intensity._

“My intensity,” Draco wonders aloud, feathery quill end brushing his chin as he thinks. _What else?_

_Your hair is actually really nice._

Draco grins at the table. _You've thought about touching it, haven't you, Prongsy-boy?_

_I'm not answering that._

_A nervous Prongsy. I like it._

_Not sure any of these questions would matter to you unless you like blokes, right?_ Prongs fires back expertly, and Draco is silenced, lips rounded and parted, hand with its quill hovering.

His chest pounds to the point that he can feel his blood thumping similarly in his inner ears.

And right as Draco thinks he might vomit there on the table, Prongsy awkwardly, hurriedly scribbles with smears, _Draco? It's okay if you do. You can say it. I promise, I swear, I won't tell anyone._

He can't blink. His fingers feel arthritic. Cold. Immobile.

The anxiety is swallowing him alive, expertly hidden from those surrounding him the way he'd learned to do from his fifth year onward. But Prongs, it seems, knows better.

 _Draco, please say something_ , Prongsy begs him. _Please trust me._

Then, as his mind snaps like something elastic with the most bizarre sensations of detachment and yet the most present he's ever felt, Draco demands with flourish, eyes lifting up to the room, _Give me your name._

Prongs hesitates as a splotch of ink appears on the page. No one meets Draco's gaze.

And then two words finally form.

_I can't._

Draco considers stabbing the damn diary with his quill, eyes flaring once over the Gryffindor table for old comfort's sake where Potter is staring at the wood, seeming distracted.

 _Give me your fucking name_ , Draco demands again.

_I can't._

The diary snaps closed upon his lap. Draco tosses it and his texts upon the table into his bag, the actions loud and showy and catching the attention of everyone around him in whispers, and he storms from the Great Hall, confusing the crap out of his friends staring after him. He stomps all the way to his dorm, fucking aware of the sensation still active with the diary hiding in the leather, and when he arrives next to his desk, he throws the damn diary at its top.

“You promised!” Draco shouts at the silent, closed book. “You promised, you fucking bastard!”

Draco slings his bed curtains back and moves to throw himself upon the covers in broken emotion he hates to feel, but he pauses the second the damn diary flings itself _open_ on the desk, the front cover slapping the wood hard.

He stares, absolutely shocked.

Pages turn themselves roughly, as if a hand determinedly slaps them over.

Slowly he approaches the open diary, a little scared, a little aroused, and completely in _awe_ that Prongs' magic is so wild, so fucking _capable_. A new sentence is penned heavily into the paper, and it digs just as heavily into Draco, himself.

_I don't want to lose this._

Draco shudders, understanding. But he needs more. He needs _something_. This feeling of progress _can't_ progress until something gives, and he knows it.  
  
 _I want this to be real out there, Draco, not just in here._  
  
He picks up his quill.  
  
 _I'm afraid you won't try_ , Prongsy confesses, the hidden bloke's anxiety souring the energy surrounding the diary.

 _Maybe I would if you weren't clearly afraid of my opinion of you_ , he dares. Draco's mixture of emotions get the better of him, and he snaps with his wrist, _Perhaps I should just burn this thing after all._

 _Damn it, just STOP. Please!_ The ink bleeds, spiraling with more splotches and spatters, and the charm over the pen wavers just enough that jagged, authentic letters show halfway through the otherwise perfect cursive script. _I'm not ready to say my name, and I know that's not fair. I'm sorry. I thought I would be, but...look, it's not for lack of trust in you, I swear._

Prongsy seems to gather his energy as Draco sits at his desk, fuming, not even aware of the drip from his quill hitting the wood next to the diary. _Doesn't look that way_ , Draco shakes his head as he writes. _Why must you be so difficult?_

_I told you, I don't want to lose this! I don't want to be stuck thinking all I do is upset you when what I really want to do is make you feel safe, make you feel good for a fucking change! I don't want things to be how they've always been when they can be like this, you stubborn snake!_

Potter's face sparks across his mind, and Draco's jaw muscles flex.

He can't ask.

His anxiety literally won't allow him to ask.

But the crack in those words, in the fake cursive itself, is enough for Draco to take a breath and hope for something good for once. To maybe trust his subconscious a little and take a leap without preparation for a change. Nervously, Draco writes, the word choice absolutely intentional, _Then maybe you're the one who should take a chance on me, Prongsy._

Ink dribbles as Prongsy is silent through the pages, no doubt feeling much like Draco is, the distance between them in castle walls dissolving with the intimacy of the open page.  
  
After a few moments of thought, Prongs finally writes, _I have. Can't you see that?_

_Clearly you need to take a bigger one with your name, hypocrite._

_I—ugh. I understand._

_Then?_  
  
 _Then you first. Answer my question. Are you attracted to blokes?_  
  
 _Brat_ , Draco mumbles as he writes the word, but he smiles nonetheless.  
  
A new ink smile appears, and he sighs.

 _I was relieved about you being you, Prongsy-boy_ , Draco admits, breaths heaving from his lungs with strange freedom. He stands at his desk, breaths erratic, pupils wide as he rereads that sentence from his own hand.

 _Relieved...?_ Prongsy inquires.

_Yes._

_Why?_ A few seconds pass where his stomach rumbles awfully with half of his dinner tossing about inside of it as he debates seeing what might happen should he _rip_ the damn page out, and then Prongs suddenly writes, _OH._

He can't help it.

After all the stress, he can't.

Draco laughs. Loudly. His head throws back for a moment, and he chuckles, arms coming up to his chest, relieved as the anxious tension dissolves into something silly. By the time he can breathe again, all he can sense is the energy about the diary still present, and so he states, sitting down at his chair with a large smile, _Prongsy, you adorable idiot._  
  
 _I know you can't see it, but my face is really red right now. Like..._ very _red._  
  
Draco grins, confidence back. _Gryffindor red, perhaps?_

 _Perhaps_ , Prongsy replies, the word crafted smaller than others around it. _Look, I feel bad. I know I said I'd tell you my name, and I haven't, and I owe you a chance, so...so fine. I'm a Gryffindor, yes. Happy?_  
  
His heart thumps softer. His smile relaxes. Knees bunch up eagerly over his seat, and Draco gets comfortable again, leaning back on one of the wooden legs as he responds. _So long as you don't tell_ anyone _what you figured out._  
  
 _I wouldn't. Ever. Don't worry._ Prongsy assures him readily, the energy warm again. _I'm honestly proud of you telling me, even in this way. I can...imagine why you'd keep it a secret._

_I've never told anyone._

_Not even one of your friends?_

_No one._

_Is that why you don't want to fancy the person you do? Maybe you should tell him anyway._

At that possible irony, Draco shrugs against the pillows behind him now. _Maybe I just did._

_Maybe I hope you did._   
  
_Can't know unless you tell me your name._

_That's...fair._

_So...?_ he wonders, beyond nervousness and into excitement. _Shall we find out?_

 _Yes_ , Prongs replies boldly. _Tomorrow._

Draco sits back in the chair, grey eyes pulled like magnets to those words, his heart pounding veritably alive.

 

\----

 

  
  
Draco wakes the next morning with a tremble. Fingers struggle to dress him, feet stumble slightly over steps out of the dorm and bathroom, and his appetite fails him at breakfast as he sits hopeful and terrified, not once looking at the Gryffindor tables across the room.

The diary stays in his bag all morning, and he checks it every few moments. His usual morning greeting has been absent, for whatever reason, and it bothers Draco more, concerns him and throws him off into spiraling thoughts of Prongsy backing out of the agreement to unveil his identity.

After the tenth check, his nerves are dancing as he enters the dungeons alongside Blaise.

Potter seems to avoid him just as much as he is the Chosen One, and Draco feels minor confused relief when Granger elbows his rival for being moody all morning, that he's doing in fine in classes and not to worry with the exam in a few days. When Granger and Zabini are sent from the table to retrieve ingredients for one final practice before the test, Draco is left awkwardly sitting with a silent, fussy Potter. The Gryffindor eventually scrunches up the sleeve of his robe, thinking to himself, and then suddenly Potter leans down, messing about his bag.

Draco wouldn't let himself pay much attention to the motions if it weren't for one detail that immediately catches his shocked eyes as Potter sits upright again.

For there, in Potter's hand, is a book. A dark red leather book of similar shape, size, and make to his black diary. Draco almost hyperventilates, telling his spazzing mind one last time that it's just coincidence. That Potter finally got his shit together and stopped just throwing parchments around his bag.

But Potter rests the diary down upon the table, exhales as though nervous, and lifts his green eyes right at Draco.

Harry Potter smiles. Shyly. Anxiously. Hopefully. Longingly.

Draco's breath catches in his throat, choking him.  
  
Potter carefully opens the diary in front of him. Flips through pages of ink. And writes the phrase on a sheet that Draco has been devotedly waiting for since waking: _Good morning, Draco._

His eyes are painfully round and dry.

Reality slams into him as hard as his heart beats against his ribs.

Potter waits patiently as Draco doesn't lift his eyes from those words, as he understands that his instincts were right the entire time, that he'd been _arguing_ with Prongs _about_ Potter, and that despite his own fucking hope that he was right even up through _last night_ , he sits here now unable to handle it. Just as he was afraid of.

The smile falls slightly over Potter's mouth. “Draco, it's...true. I'm...you know... _Prongsy_.”

Draco gags on his next breath, just overwhelmed knowing all he's _said_ , all he's confessed is right  _there_...in Potter's hands on the table. That _Potter_ truly has been the one encouraging him and arguing with him, helping him and listening to him, being his silent best mate and flirting with him through the late nights. All things he wanted to be true suddenly feel like all things he now can't stomach.

And he understands then how different the _idea_ of change is to the actual movement in action.

He doesn't even blink.

One second he's sitting there on the verge of panic, and the next he's out of the room, running down the hall for the nearest boys' toilets. He doesn't feel the hard slaps of his shoes on the stone, doesn't register anything but the slide through the door to the loo and the bang of his hip into the farthest stall.

Draco bends on his knees, unsure if he wants to vomit or cry, scream or laugh, shudder or smile.

His upset stomach has him hesitating for a few minutes, how long he isn't sure. But he hears the main door open and close, and then soft footsteps come closer.

Draco dreads each one. He knows those steps. He's heard them for years in the school.

So when Potter pauses behind him finally at the end of the stalls, Draco doesn't look over his shoulder to check. He just rocks slightly on his knees, elbow on the toilet seat, palm over his face.

“I expected _some_ shock, you know, but not...this...bad.”

Draco just leans forward more, feeling his breakfast coming up his throat.

Potter breathes out behind him. And with a sad voice, he says, “Now you see why I was afraid to take the chance. I've dreamed about this moment so much, just imagining you being skeptical and then maybe smiling at me. But it's like you wrote the one day. You really _hate_ me. I disgust you _this_ much that you're sick at the idea of _me_ being your friend and _me_ fancying you.”

No, he wants to argue. No, Potter doesn't disgust him.

He disgusts _himself_.

Draco can't say how he'd hoped for Prongsy to be Potter subconsciously. He can't blurt that it's why he'd avoided considering him so much as a possible identity—not just because he couldn't wrap his mind around Potter having such reasons to feel as Prongsy does but also because Draco spoke the truth before. He didn't _want_ to find Potter attractive. He didn't want to ever consider the bloke for even a silly sexual dream because of their differences and their rivalries.

And that aversion now flames in his belly as self-disgust.

His own pathetic childish needs disgust him as a more mature older teen. His desire to have been approved by his father at costs he hadn't understood disgusts him now that he can't stand the idea. His arrogance, his defensive move in telling Prongs about Potter disgusts him with Potter silent at his feet.

Potter sniffs, like he's trying to keep himself together. “I won't tell anyone. I'll even burn my copy. Just...I-I just want you to know I'll miss talking to you, Draco, for lots of reasons.”

Tears slip down his cheeks, and Draco clenches his fingers around the lid of the toilet, his heart so torn as to how to feel, his lips refusing to let him speak.

“I'm sorry,” Potter whispers. “And I don't hate you.”

Draco's panic from the classroom returns tripled with Potter's soft steps fading away.

So maybe the idea of chance is appealing, but the reality is scary.

And perhaps accepting what he wants is terrifying in and of itself.

But _Prongsy_ took the chance.

Someone took a chance on _him_ in such a big way. Someone believed in him, even in the face of all he threw back to keep the exposure of himself at bay for so long.

A deep, strong surge of Malfoy defiance electrifies his limbs.

He spins about on his knees and pushes to his feet quickly, darting out into the hall of stalls. Potter stands at the other end, one foot in the air, green eyes stunned behind his glasses, brows up into his fringe. Draco storms up halfway, leaving some space between them.

His fingers clench about his sleeves, and he grunts the one word he's able to speak. “No.”

Potter frowns and puts his hovering foot down. “No, what? I don't understand.”

“No,” Draco says again, hiccuping on a cry he tries to forcibly swallow. “No!”

“Malfoy, calm down,” Potter tries, palms open peacefully. He comes slightly closer into the space between them. “What are you trying to say?”

Draco shivers, the emotions wracking through his body as he stands there so distraught.

Potter takes another cautious step toward him. “Hey, it's okay. You don't have to...feel bad. Why don't you go up to the Hospital Wing? I'll let Slughorn know. I told him you were sick when I ran out after you.”

“No,” Draco replies, less hoarse and more broken.

“No, you don't want to go to Madam Pomfrey?”

“No.”

“All right. Take a few minutes in here, then go to your dorm. Zabini can bring you your bag.”

“No.”

Potter takes his glasses off to rub the bridge of his nose. “Draco, I can't help if you just keep saying no.”

Draco knows. But it's all he can think: that _no_ , it can't be Potter even though that makes perfect sense; that _no_ , despite how close he's become with Prongsy, he's not sure he can accept it also being closeness with _him_ ; that _no_ , he can't possibly want these _feelings_ he says he can't have for his rival, his enemy, his daily annoyance and source of distrust and broken self-reflection. That, _no_ , he couldn't have hurt Prongsy, the one he cares about, so badly in the past and still be gruff half the time and not _feel bad_ about it.

“No,” he whimpers, thinking how terrible he really must be, no matter the reasons that shaped him into the person he was and is.

Maybe Prongs—Potter—was right with the picture he'd painted with those questions before.

Harry takes another step as Draco closes his eyes and cries, standing there alone. Potter takes another, and another, and then he stops right in front of Draco's trembling, guilty, forlorn body. Draco opens his eyes and sees that handsome face so close. It's worried about him, openly afraid and concerned. Emotions Draco long felt and imagined witnessing through simple ink pour out of Harry's green eyes.

Friendship and compassion. Hope and strength. Attraction and adoration.

Draco takes all of it in, lets it soothe his rocking self-image, and hopes. Oh, how he hopes.

Potter blinks his own wetness from his eyes and very slowly and carefully brings a hand up until it slightly rests upon Draco's jaw. And Draco shatters at its accepting tenderness.

There are no words between them when Draco wraps his arms about Potter's neck. No blind reassurances are murmured when Harry pulls him into a tight hug and their faces rest together, cheek to cheek.

“What...pet...did I once try to keep?” he whispers softly. “What happened to it?”

“You found a little white mouse. Your dad made you get rid of it.”

Draco chokes, tip of his pointy nose angling to Potter's neck. “F-Fuck.”

“Do you remember what Prongsy—what I said—about how I thought there was something more to you? I was right. I was fucking right.”

Draco holds on tighter, trembling uncontrollably, one hand cupping the back of Potter's wild head of hair. “I....”

“Shh.”

“But I—”

“It's okay. C'mon. We'll...talk more later, okay? I'm worried about you,” Harry tells him, a warm hand patting its way down his lower back to rest at the base of his spine. “Go to the Hospital Wing so I know you're all right.”

“You're not going to give up, are you?” Draco wonders, half wanting to laugh with the realization of _why_ Prongsy's nagging insistence at times felt so familiar even in their first pages together.

“Nope,” Potter sighs. “Let me help, Draco. Let me make you feel better.”

Draco sniffs, face in the crook of Harry's neck. He breathes in the hauntingly calming scent of Potter, and it centers him against all resistance. “You...really are stubborn, huh, Prongsy?”

Potter snickers in his ear. “Yeah.”

Draco pulls away, slowly, and Harry keeps an eye on his balance. “Potter?”

“Yes?” Harry asks, wet eyes blinking behind his frames.

“I...I knew it was you...from the beginning, really. I just don't think I...could handle it, so I told myself it couldn't be. I couldn't handle the idea of...many things.”

“I figured after awhile. The way you'd avoid talking about me...and then how you, ah, ranted.”

Draco slowly walks to the door with Potter at his side, and he stops once, back to Prongsy behind him. Grey eyes take in the wooden door, but they might as well be staring over his shoulder as he asks, “Is it true, then? Do you...fancy me, Potter?”

A warm palm settles over his lower back with curious touch and gentle possession, and every nerve ending in Draco's body activates.

“Yes,” Potter answers quietly.

“And that you...hoped you were the one I...?”

“Yes.”

Draco pulls himself out of the resplendent rush of hormones driving through him full force, and he murmurs, sounding a bit gruff, “I'll go to the Hospital Wing. Bring my bag.”

“Okay.”

“Stop sulking.”

“I'm not.”

“Yes, you are.”

“I...fine. I'm sorry. I shouldn't be upset. I feel like a right git for it. You fancy who you do, and that's that. We've hated each other for years. I get it.”  
  
“Don't be stupid, Potter. You have _always_ been him, you romantic sod, and you know it.”

Out the corner of his eye is movement. Adjustment to cover a huge smile beneath happy green eyes. “Draco, I—”

“See you, Prongsy,” Draco murmurs, red in the face as he quickly exits the restrooms while entirely avoiding looking at Potter.

 

\----

 

Draco rests in the Hospital Wing through Potions under the watchful eye of Madam Pomfrey.

Strangely, he finds he needed the brief nap he wakes from.  
  
He lies afterward bored and impatient and waiting, his thoughts a blurred, beautiful storm of hope and excitement and curiosity for what might come next with his not-so-faceless friend.

And when Potter slips through the shut door of the large room, Draco slightly sits up in the bed, his mask of unaffected grace easily broken by the shy, handsome smile directed his way. Potter strides forward and extends his bag, resting it on the floor beside the bed and setting his own down beside it.

Potter carefully slides a chair over, and the pair sit in silence in the otherwise empty Hospital Wing. Draco taps his fingers upon his lap, eyes hovering between the blankets and Potter's closest knee.

When he doesn't volunteer to break the quiet, Potter mumbles, “You know...now that I think about it...writing to you in the journal the way I did does feel a little disingenuous, doesn't it.”

“Potter,” Draco tries to say, attempting to intercept where he knows Potter is going with those words.

But Harry holds a hand up briefly, waving it slightly. “No, it's true. Some of what you said had...weight I hadn't considered before. But it also showed me how shielded we are by our own perspectives. You saw me as you did because you never saw what the weight of _being_ _me_ has done to me.”

Draco's lips shut. His eyes close, too. His fingers grip together.

“After the past year or more...I don't know. I knew things had to change. I felt so...weird over you and how things went. I was...sorry, especially after you helped me how you did. So I spent this summer just...sitting outside of the Burrow and thinking to myself.”

“And Weasley?” Draco questions, eyes flicking over his nails.

“Hm?”

“...Ginny. You were with her, last I knew.”

“Yeah. Well. Enough sitting there thinking about you got to be obvious even to her,” Potter teases. Draco flinches at first when the warm hand lightly touches over his, but as Potter immediately starts to withdraw his fingers, Draco reaches back. Their eyes stare over their held hands upon Draco's leg for a long moment. And Potter, with a soft swallow, continues, “I opened up to her eventually. We had some awkward talks, but...it helped me understand myself better. 'Mione had been worried all summer, of course, and...well, she overheard some of it. She, too, wasn't sure how to...feel, but...eventually she asked me what I wanted. I said to know you better, but I didn't know how to try.”

Draco doesn't speak. Just keeps staring at the fingers slowly slipping through his, tightening in a good way. He squeezes his grip.

“Ginny came up with the idea of the diaries, but we got uncomfortable because of...well, because of what Tom Riddle had done with his to both of us. In the end I decided it didn't have to be like that, though. I never wanted to manipulate you, but I had to find a way through...through the bias. I'd always planned from the start to tell you my name if you ever opened up to me enough.”

“Didn't seem that way,” Draco chastises, a brow cocked as he takes in Potter's red face.

“Y-Yeah, well...some part of me honestly hadn't expected you to try as much as you did. When you said you were gonna burn it all that time ago, I believed you. And then you opened it right there in class, and I stopped breathing,” Harry admits, green eyes soft and amplified in those signature glasses. Potter's free hand lays beside their held ones, forming a band of heat over Draco's covered thigh. “I knew right then. I _knew_ I was right about there being more to you. But I also understood I couldn't get to know you just because I wanted to do it. I had to _prove_ to you I meant it, make you feel safe enough to...relax.”

Slowly, very slowly, Draco smiles to himself.

Potter coughs. “I'll confess, though, I got a bit worried that you'd like Prongs, er, Prongsy as you called me, more than me and, ah...not...want us to be the same person.”

Draco snorts and tugs Potter's fingers, unsure of how to show affectionate reassurance. “Imagine how it was for me with the idea of my...feelings for you and also liking Prongs, too.”  
  
They both glance to one another, take in the mutual awkwardness, and say nothing else.

Thumbs stroke along joints. Palms clasp and slightly sweat with nerves. Eyes watch the door for movement, and hearts race in unison to meet pulses that dance joined in time.

“So what happens now?” Draco asks once he's gathered his courage. Potter lifts his face, angling it as he thinks, and Draco grunts, “What, no idea for a finale in your grand plan, Prongsy?”

Potter grins, the smile overtaking everything about him.

His eyes light. His cheeks warm. His brow scrunches up his scar.

Draco briefly looks away, astounded by how those little things affect him _because_ of him.  
  
Gently, with slight tremble hidden inside the bold Gryffindor assertiveness, Potter leans forward. Draco's eyes open more and more the closer Potter's face grows to his; when it's so close that their noses touch, Draco finally closes his lids.   
  
Lips kiss for the first time, press together firmly from both the snake and the lion, each pushing as much energy into it as they can. Draco's mouth parts after Potter's insistent second kiss, and he dares a brief lick over Harry's lower lip before pecking it one last time as they withdraw away.  
  
Their faces shine in matching beautiful Gryffindor red, a shade for which Draco carries new appreciation.

“Well, I thought...you know...maybe we could...keep talking and see, um, see where it all goes?” Potter offers, voice a bit raspy and cautious against his smaller, shyer smile. “If you're interested in that, I mean. I, uh... _I am_ , so....”

“Guess you'll have to wait and see,” Draco replies, eyes slipping to his bag where the diary hides.

He waits, wondering if Potter will understand.

And when the smile grows again, he knows Prongsy does.

 

\----

 

The night Draco leaves a single message, just the words confirming he's curious, too.

And when he sits there, fighting anxiety as Prongsy takes a moment to respond, the reply stirs the biggest smile to his face, big enough that Crabbe and Goyle both point it out to Zabini in the dorms, who merely pulls his wand out and considers casting that _Riddikulus_ after all.

He ignores them, though, unable to take his eyes away from the page.

For there, below his acceptance, read two words.  
  
 _Prove it_.

 

\----

 

  
  
  
Midterms pass.

For some, it's as painful as expected with Crabbe groaning over his graded parchments in the Great Hall and then tossing them to the side, preferring dessert instead.

For some, it's a surprising boost of confidence when Goyle sits next to Crabbe, stunned at his papers, staring at evidence of how his Charms marks have increased with Zabini and Draco's help.

Still, for others it's a time barely paid attention toward—a time of Draco and Potter sneaking notes in diaries between moments of study exhaustion, a time of Prongsy dispelling that charm from his pen so that Potter's scratchy writing shows gloriously through every past page and more. It's a time of completely open flirting, a time of confessions of attraction to grey eyes and soft black hair.

They write each other every day without fail.

One night with midterms over and some breaths breathed again, Prongsy explains why he chose that name, leaving Draco to see yet another dimension to Potter he hadn't known existed, just like Harry had said in the Hospital Wing.

So Draco opens up about his family in depth. About the War. About things he hates and things he doesn't. And Prongsy does the same, acknowledging both pain and help they've exchanged. Words on paper become actualities, and sometimes rather than writing late at night they meet up instead, talking in person outside on the steps, wondering the same things aloud before. Potter leans over the first time they do so and kisses Draco's cheek before recoiling away shyly. Toward the end of November, he admonishes Potter for taking up too much paper; for Prongsy has been constantly scribbling notes about how unsurprised he is at Draco's passionate nature hidden all this time, all because Draco had felt that little peck to his cheek and grabbed Potter's leaning, blushing form right back to him for a full _amazing_ kiss like their first in the Hospital Wing, repeating it each time they meet afterward until they grow to even write about snogging.

Draco dodges his new emotions' concerns as much as he does Crabbe and Goyle's still ongoing curiosity about his diary as they write through the winter, wondering how in Merlin's name they'll be able to come out with this at some point. Potter allays his concerns through Prongsy's familiar ink smiles, assuring him they'll figure it out when they get there and that he understands waiting until they leave to do so to keep the rest of the Slytherins firmly off Draco's back with their growing inquisitiveness. He gets it, he says, because Ron Weasley had caught onto the diary in the dorm and interrogated Potter in a bit of concern given the past with Riddle's version, only for the Weasel to grow _more_ concerned for a while after the news until his girlfriend and sister calmed him down together. Draco endures all the speculative sneaked glances from the Gryffindors in the Great Hall, smirking at them as he sits at his table with the Slytherins, the filling diary always visible in his grip for Ron Weasley to give him a protective, speculative look.  
  
When he _truly worries_ about running out of paper in December, he finds a wrapped book tucked into his bag a few days before Christmas holiday leave, likely snuck into it during one of their nightly distracting snogs. He stares at the wrapping paper with a drawn smiling face and antlers, and he laughs loudly.

He unwraps it to find a new diary.

It looks just as the one before it—black leather, hand pressed paper, top notch craftsmanship.

But unlike the last, this one has something already written into it.

 _Love you_ peers up from the first page, completely stuttering his heart and brain.

Draco stares at it, speechless and quite flustered, and later that night when he feels the energy come, when he knows the newer matching diary is right in Potter's hands where it should be ready and waiting, Draco knows what he must say.

 _Prove it, Prongsy-boy._ And below that follows the handsomely scripted and proudly written,  _Love you, too._

 


End file.
